Porous stainless steel supported silica membrane for WGS reaction

In the last decades many studies on the use of catalytic membrane reactors in integrated plants for hydrogen production to be used in PEM-FC were carried out. Particular attention is also focused on the upgrading step, generally consisting in the water gas shift (WGS) reaction, necessary to reduce CO content and producing in the meantime more hydrogen. A fundamental aspect concerns the characterization of the membrane that will be used in a WGS membrane reactor. In this work some permeation tests on a silica membrane on porous stainless steel support were carried out using H2, CO, N2, CO2 as single gas or their mixtures in a temperature range between 225 and 290°C in order to evaluate its application for WGS reaction and the influence of different gases on the H2 permeation through the membrane.