Experimental Investigations of Hydrogen Purification by Purging through Metal Hydride

In an experimental stand [1] for investigation of properties of hydrogen accumulating the materials investigated a new type of reactor cleaning and storage of hydrogen. The applicability of hydrogen purging through metal hydride beds for the purification from non-poisoning admixtures is studied experimentally. The main characteristics of the process together with the main technical barriers of the proposed technology are defined. Specially designed stainless steel continuous flow reactor filled with LaFe0.1Mn0.3Ni4.8 intermetallic compound is tested at variable inlet hydrogen/inert gas composition with measuring mass flow, pressure, temperature and hydrogen content at the outlet both for charging and discharging mode. The estimations of hydrogen losses and purification capacity show certain advantages of the studied technology in comparison with PSA-like mode [1], especially from the point of view of operation regime simplification. The evident process slow-down observed in the experiment is connected with saturation of metal hydride porous bed by hydrogen and with temperature increase due to high thermal effect at sorption (~ 40 kJ/mole Н2). The ways for heat and mass transfer optimization together with the range of applicability of the method for fine hydrogen purification are described and discussed.