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Updated: Sep 13, 2025
Hydrogen Production and Utilization in a Membrane Reactor
Published on: March 10, 2023
Accelerating lithium-mediated nitrogen reduction through an integrated palladium membrane hydrogenation reactor
Hossein Bemana1, Hendrik Schumann1, Morgan McKee1
1Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.
None:
Lithium-mediated N2 reduction reaction (LiNRR) is regarded as the most robust route towards electrifying NH3 synthesis. However, in this reaction geometry, hydrogen atoms typically supplied through electrolyte degradation, via H2 oxidation or a combination of both, hampering the efficiency of the process. In this work we provide an alternative H-source by merging a Pd Membrane reactor (PMR) with a LiNRR reactor in a unique dual-reactor setup. Specifically, use a Pd membrane that extracts H atoms directly from H2O and transfers them across the membrane to an electrodeposited Li layer operating under non-aqueous LiNRR conditions. We show that these H2O-derived H-atoms are used directly to synthesize NH3 in the presence of N2 and electrodeposited Li, thereby opening orthogonal reaction pathways within the metal-mediated nitrogen reduction concept.
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