Reliable Hydrogen Purification

Hydrogen Purifier Module

Developed over 30 years under the direction of Dr. David Edlund, e1’s membrane-based purification module is at the core of e1’s protected intellectual property.  The proven and mature proprietary technology within the purification module represents a significant advancement in scalable, reliable and affordable hydrogen purification and a winning alternative versus micro-pressure swing absorption (PSA).

Key Advantages:

  1. Lowest initial cost of equipment: Converts reformate gas produced by the hydrogen generator into fuel cell grade high-purity hydrogen at a much lower capital cost compared to PSA at scales below 500 kg per day.
  2. Simple operation:  The purification module is elegant in design with few parts.  The purification module operates at an elevated temperature and produces hydrogen in a single step.
  3. Compact and scalable:  At the specified operating pressure, a single purification module with a small form factor will produce up to 5 kg per day of hydrogen.  Multiple purification modules can be aligned within a hot box to produce larger quantities of hydrogen from a single reformate source.   
  4. Fuel cell grade, high-purity hydrogen:  Produces greater than 99.97% high-purity hydrogen with less than 0.2 ppm CO.
  5. Mature technology:  e1’s purification module has been tested and integrated with many commercial PEM fuel cell brands.
  6. Flexible design:  The same purification module is used with all e1 families of hydrogen generators, and can also be used as a stand along hydrogen purification product when high purity hydrogen is required for other applications and industries such as power plant generator cooling, and material processing plants.
  7. Easy integration:  Steady-state process works by a pressure differential.  No valves, absorbents, or complicated control strategies are required.
  8. High Reliability and long lifetime: The solid-state purification module has no moving parts, robust design, and a long lifetime.  Engineered to achieve greater than 10,000 operational hours.
Single Purification Module
Purification Modules Array

Frequently Asked Questions

  • What is the principle of e1 solid-state membrane purification technology?

    The solid-state hydrogen purifier module incorporates a hydrogen-selective, high-temperature FMA (Fixed Membrane Assembly) to generate pure hydrogen.

  • How do the membrane purifiers work?

    The purifier operates on a pressure differential and requires no moving parts.

    The steam reformer provides syngas or reformate gas to the upstream side of the membrane purifier at 200 to 300 psi.  The downstream side of the purifier is at low pressure (1.5 bar to 2.4 bar).  The hydrogen passes across the membranes based on the pressure differential of the reformate gas upstream and a low pressure downstream. 

  • What is the hydrogen purity produced by e1 membrane purifiers?

    e1 hydrogen generators use a hydrogen-selective membrane as the first stage of hydrogen purification.  e1 uses a polishing reactor as a second stage purifier to ensure that any carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are converted to methane which is inert to the fuel cell. 

    The hydrogen purity specification for all e1 hydrogen generators is >99.97% hydrogen with <0.2 ppm CO and <0.2 ppm CO2. 

    Typically, we see 99.98% to 99.99% H2 with no detectable CO and no detectable CO2. The outlet H2 pressure is typically between 1.5 bar to 2.4 bar. 

  • What is the hydrogen production of e1’s membrane purifiers?

    At normal operational pressures, each membrane purifier can be sized to produce from 1 to 90 sLm.  For large-scale applications, we use multiples of our largest membrane module.

  • What is the lifetime of the membrane purifier?

    Expected membrane module lifetime is greater than 10,000 operating hours, with unlimited standby hours.

  • How tolerate is the membrane purifier to shock and vibration?

    The solid-state membrane purifier has no moving parts, features a robust design, and has a very good tolerance to shock and vibrations. 

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