A Study on the Palladium Alloy Membrane for Hydrogen Separation

This study presented the effect of membrane thickness on hydrogen permeability. Microvoids on the surface of the membrane should not exist for the exact values of hydrogen permeability. Pd-Cu-Ni hydrogen alloy membranes were fabricated by Ni powder sintering, substrate plasma pretreatment, sputtering and Cu reflow process. And this leaded to void-free surface and dense film of Pd-Cu-Ni hydrogen alloy membrane. Hydrogen permeation test showed that hydrogen permeability increased from 2.7 to $15.2ml/cm^2{\cdot}min{\cdot}atm^{0.5}$ as membrane thickness decreased from 12 to $4{\mu}m$ . This represented the similar trend as a hydrogen permeability of pure palladium membrane based on solution-diffusion mechanism.