Highly Efficient, Solid State Hydrogen Purification for Resource Recovery

Sustainable Innovations' signature electrochemical cell architecture provides a solution to NASA's search for regenerative separation technology enabling maximum hydrogen recovery from a stream containing water vapor (saturated), carbon monoxide (CO), and hydrocarbons including methane, acetylene, ethane, and ethylene, among others. Separation of hydrogen from mixed gaseous streams presents a significant technical challenge for various NASA applications. In addition, the ability to efficiently perform hydrogen purification presents an attractive economic opportunity. Sustainable Innovations is developing a technology that extracts hydrogen from a mixed stream by electro-oxidization of the hydrogen and subsequent electro-reduction of the resultant protons in a separate chamber. The process, when combined with an electrochemical cell architecture that is engineered to tolerate high differential pressure, can be used to separate and compress hydrogen in a single step. The process is proven to be efficient, quiet, and highly reliable. It requires no reciprocating compressor, so it is largely maintenance free.

Sustainable Innovations has developed novel solid state technology for gas separation and will be applying it to enable maximum hydrogen recovery from a stream containing water vapor (saturated), carbon monoxide (CO), and hydrocarbons including methane, acetylene, ethane, and ethylene, among others. The hydrogen recovery system will play an important role in resource recovery and recycling as an enabling functional area for the AR subsystems needed for long-duration missions. The hydrogen purification system will have capabilities that include gas compression and management as well as gas separation.

Sustainable Innovations is commercializing its Electrochemical Hydrogen Separator and Compressor (EHS+C) device for hydrogen under the trade name H2RENEW™. Target markets for this product are: ? Process Hydrogen Markets: Hydrogen used as process atmosphere in industries such as metal heat treatment, electronics and semiconductor manufacturing, float glass production, and electricity production (for electric generator cooling.) ? Hydrogen Fueling Markets: Hydrogen used as fuel in a variety of fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) (forklifts, scooters, passenger cars, ships, etc.), stationary power and research markets. ? Hydrogen Tri-Generation: Separation of hydrogen from stationary fuel cell reformate, and compression for fueling (such as FCVs) applications. ? Hydrogen Production: Captive production, merchant production and delivery, and distributed production of hydrogen from natural gas or methane via reformer, or via electrolysis. ? Power-to-Gas Energy Storage: Energy storage in the form of hydrogen produced from excess renewable power and stored in the natural gas infrastructure.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.