Composite palladium membrane prepared by introducing metallic glue and its high durability below the critical temperature

• A new idea was presented to prepare highly durable palladium composite membrane by introducing a metallic glue.
• Platinum layer as metallic glue could show remarkable enhancement in toughness against hydrogen atmosphere.
• It was demonstrated that the developed composite palladium membrane could withstand severe operations below the critical temperature.

Thin palladium composite membrane suffers serious damage like cracks, peel-off, and so on from hydrogen absorption and desorption, especially below the critical temperature, 298 °C, in which α ↔ β phase transition occurs. To prevent such problems and strengthen the palladium film, it was proposed that “metallic glue” was introduced as an adhesion interlayer between porous support and palladium film. In this study, platinum was employed as the glue by taking particular note of its physical compatibility not only with palladium but also with alumina.First, a 60–80 nm thick platinum layer was sputtered on the porous anodic oxide support, and then, 1–2 μm thick palladium film sputtered. It was found that deformation by an internal stress produced in the Pd film could be completely depressed with the platinum glue during permeation tests, which were carried out in the range of 150–350 °C including up-and-down operation with temperature.