Hydrogen separation by thin vanadium-based multi-layered membranes

Thanks to their high hydrogen permeability, vanadium based alloys can be a valuable and
sustainable alternative to palladium alloys, commonly employed in commercial membranes
for hydrogen purification/separation. In this work, the unprecedented deposition of
micrometric vanadium-based multilayers and their investigation as hydrogen selective
membranes have been reported. In particular, this work describes the use of High Power
Impulse Magnetron Sputtering, a technique easily scalable also for complex geometries, for
the deposition of dense and crystalline Pd/V93Pd7/Pd multilayers with total thickness <7 mm
onto porous alumina. These membranes showed high hydrogen fluxes in the 300e400 C
range, up to 0.26 mol m2 s1 at 300 kPa pressure difference and 375 C, as well as an
unexpected and significant resistance to hydrogen embrittlement and to syngas in operating
conditions.