Chemists offer new hydrogen purification method [View All]

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/nu-con021109.php

Public release date: 15-Feb-2009

Contact: Megan Fellman
[e-mail]
847-491-3115
Northwestern University

Chemists offer new hydrogen purification method

President Barack Obama's pursuit of energy independence promises to accelerate research and development for alternative energy sources -- solar, wind and geothermal power, biofuels, hydrogen and biomass, to name a few.

For the hydrogen economy, one of the roadblocks to success is the hydrogen itself. Hydrogen needs to be purified before it can be used as fuel for fuel cells, but current methods are not very clean or efficient.

Northwestern University chemist Mercouri G. Kanatzidis, together with postdoctoral research associate Gerasimos S. Armatas, has developed a class of new porous materials, structured like honeycomb, that is very effective at separating hydrogen from complex gas mixtures. The materials exhibit the best selectivity in separating hydrogen from carbon dioxide and methane, to the best of the researchers' knowledge.

The results, which offer a new way to separate gases not available before, will be published online Feb. 15 by the journal Nature Materials. The materials are a new family of germanium-rich chalcogenides.

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http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nmat2381.html