An amorphous alloy membrane without noble metals for gaseous hydrogen separation

Hydrogen-permeable membranes have a variety of industrial applications but all of the metal membranes employed in industry are made of palladium or palladium alloys. We have been looking for a new material and found that a kind of amorphous alloy, not including noble metals, can be used by itself. It is amorphous Zr36Ni64. The amorphous membrane 30 μm thick was produced by the rapid quenching method, which was found to be tough even in a hydrogen atmosphere and permeable only to hydrogen. After exposing both sides of the membrane to reactive gas, such as hydrogen and oxygen, the membrane exhibited a practical level of permeation rate more than 1 cm3 H2(STP)/cm2 min without noble metal coating.