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 Karl Franzens University Graz

Graz University of Technology 

Nanoporous materials for hydrogen isotope separation
Dr. Michael Hirscher
Max-Planck-Institut für Intelligente Systeme (ehemals Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung), Stuttgart
https://mms.is.mpg.de/research_fields/hydrogen-storage
16:15 - 17:15 Tuesday 20 April 2021 Graz University of Technology, remote - online

Video: https://tugraz.webex.com/tugraz/j.php?MTID=m515e47db70524775a7f5460d95f963c6

One of the important operations in chemical industry is separation and purification of gaseous products. Especially H$_2$/D$_2$ isotope separation is a difficult task since its size, shape and thermodynamic properties resemble each other. Porous materials offer two different mechanisms for separating hydrogen isotopes, either confinement in small pores, i.e., “kinetic quantum sieving”, or adsorption on strong binding sites, i.e., “chemical affinity quantum sieving”. Recently, several new classes of nanoporous materials have been developed, which for the first time allow the exact tailoring of pore size and aperture as well as including open metal sites into the framework.

Experimentally, the measurement of the selectivity for hydrogen isotope separation is very challenging, since it requires low temperatures near the boiling point of the gases. Using low-temperature thermal desorption spectroscopy (TDS), we have developed a method for measuring directly the isotope selectivity after exposure to H$_2$/D$_2$ mixtures.

Exemplarily, this talk will demonstrate the potential of novel nanoporous materials for hydrogen isotope separation on experimental results for metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and organic cage molecules.