S. Battersby

Publications (4)0 Total impact

• Conference Proceeding: Silica membrane reactors for hydrogen production from water gas shift

  S. Battersby, V. Rudolph, M.C. Duke, J.C.D. da Costa
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  ABSTRACT: This paper presents an analysis of membrane reactor (MR) operation and design for enhanced hydrogen production from the water gas shift (WGS) reaction. It has been established that membrane reactors can enhance an equilibrium limited reaction through product separation. However, the detailed effects of reactor setup, membrane configuration and catalyst volume have yet to be properly analysed for this reaction. This paper investigates new ideas for membrane reactors such as the development of new catalytic films, for improved interaction between the reaction and separation zones. Current membrane reactors utilise a packed bed of catalyst within the membrane tube, utilising a large volume of catalyst to drive reaction. This is still inefficient and provides only limited benefits over conventional WGS reactors. New reactor configurations look to optimise the interactive effects between reaction and separation to provide improved operation. In this paper, thin film catalysts were produced using dip coating and spray coating techniques. This technique produced catalyst coatings with good thickness, though the abrasion strength of the dip coated catalyst was quite low. The catalyst was tested in a packed bed reactor for temperature activity at low temperatures and catalyst activity at varying levels of excess water
  Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, 2006. ICONN '06. International Conference on; 08/2006
• Article: Hydrothermal stability of cobalt silica membranes in a water gas shift membrane reactor

  S. Battersby, S. Smart, B. Ladewig, S M Liu, M. C. Duke, V. Rudolph, J. C. D. da Costa
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  ABSTRACT: Cobalt silica membranes were fabricated using sol-gel techniques for separation of H-2 in a membrane reactor set up for the low temperature (up to 300 degrees C) water gas shift (WGS) reaction. Single dry gas testing prior to reaction showed He/N-2 and H-2/CO2 selectivities increasing from 75-400 to 45-160 as the temperature increased from 100 to 250 degrees C, respectively. During reaction the membrane delivered a H-2 permeation purity of 89-95% at high conversions, with the higher water ratio conversion providing superior membrane operational performance. Characterisation of bulk gels indicated that the cobalt silica was hydrophilic and exposure to steam at 200 degrees C resulted in the densification of the film matrix. The cobalt doping allowed for the membrane structural microporosity to be maintained as H-2 selectivity was not affected by steam exposure, though the flux decreased due to pore collapse of the film matrix. A total of 8 thermal cycle testing were carried out from room temperature to 300 degrees C, and the membrane displayed good hydrothermal stability, maintaining a high H-2 selectivity for over 200 h of operation
• Article: Performance of cobalt silica membranes in gas mixture separation

  S. Battersby, T. Tasaki, S. Smart, B. Ladewig, S M Liu, M. C. Duke, V. Rudolph, J. C. D. da Costa
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  ABSTRACT: In this work we investigate the performance of cobalt silica membranes for the separation of gas mixtures at various temperatures and partial pressures. The membranes were prepared by a sol-gel process using tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) in ethanol and H2O2 with cobalt nitrate hexahydrate (Co(NO3)(2)6H(2)O). The membranes complied with molecular sieving transport mechanism, delivering high single gas selectivities for He/N-2 (4500) and H-2/CO2 (1000) and high activation energy for the smaller gas molecules (He, H-2) whilst a negative activation energy for larger molecules (CO, CO2 and N-2). Molecular probing results strongly suggest membranes with a narrow pore size distribution with an average pore size of 3A. The effect of gas composition on the membrane operation was studied over both binary and ternary gas mixtures, and compared with the single gas permeance results. It was found in both cases feed concentration had a large impact on both selectivities and flow rates. These followed a trade off inverse relationship, as increasing H-2 feed concentration led to a higher flow rate but a lower H-2. selectivity, though H-2 purity in the permeate stream increased. The use of sweep gas in the permeate stream to increase the driving force of gas permeation was beneficial as the H-2 flow rate and the H-2 recovery rate increased by a factor of 3. It is noteworthy to mention that though the ternary feed flow had only 27% H-2. concentration, the permeate stream delivered CO and CO2 at very low concentrations, 0.8 and 0.14%, respectively. It was observed that the membrane selectivity in gas mixtures were 10-15% of the single gas selectivity, while permeation decreased with the gas composition (Single>Binary>Ternary). Nevertheless, increased temperature and sweep flow rate allowed the membrane to deliver a permeate stream in excess of 99% H-2 purity and a lower CO concentration of 700 ppm, indicating the quality of these membranes for gas mixture separation.
• Article: Membrane reactor modelling, validation and simulation for the WGS reaction using metal doped silica membranes

  S. Battersby, B. P. Ladewig, M. Duke, V. Rudolph, J. C. D. da Costa