Water Adsorption Effect on Carbon Molecular Sieve Membranes in H2-CH4 Mixture at High Pressure

Carbon molecular sieve membranes (CMSMs) are emerging as promising solution to overcome the drawbacks of Pd-based membranes for H2 separation since (i) they are relatively easy to manufacture; (ii) they have low production and raw material costs; (iii) and they can work at conditions where polymeric and palladium membranes are not stable. In this work CMSMs have been investigated in pure gas and gas mixture tests for a proper understanding of the permeation mechanism, selectivity and purity towards hydrogen. No mass transfer limitations have been observed with these membranes, which represents an important advantage compared to Pd-Ag membranes, which suffer from concentration polarization especially at high pressure and low hydrogen concentrations. H2, CH4, CO2 and N2 permeation at high pressures and different temperatures in presence of dry and humidified stream (from ambient and water vapour) have been carried out to investigate the effect of the presence of water in the feed stream. Diffusion is the main mechanism observed for hydrogen, while methane, nitrogen and especially carbon dioxide permeate through adsorption-diffusion at low temperatures and high pressures. Finally, H2 permeation from H2-CH4 mixtures in presence of water has been compared at different temperatures and pressure, which demonstrates that water adsorption is an essential parameter to improve the performance of carbon molecular sieve membranes, especially when working at high temperature. Indeed, a hydrogen purity of 98.95% from 10% H2—90% CH4 was achieved. The main aim of this work is to understand the permeation mechanisms of CMSMs in different operating conditions and find the best conditions to optimize the separation of hydrogen.This project has received funding from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking under grant Agreement no. 700355. This Joint Undertaking receves support from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research

The European Renal Association - European Dialysis and Transplant Association Registry Annual Report 2014 : a summary

Background: This article summarizes the European Renal Association - European Dialysis and Transplant Association Registry's 2014 annual report. It describes the epidemiology of renal replacement therapy (RRT) for end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in 2014 within 35 countries. Methods: In 2016, the ERA-EDTA Registry received data on patients who in 2014 where undergoing RRT for ESRD, from 51 national or regional renal registries. Thirty-two registries provided individual patient level data and 19 provided aggregated patient level data. The incidence, prevalence and survival probabilities of these patients were determined. Results: In 2014, 70 953 individuals commenced RRT for ESRD, equating to an overall unadjusted incidence rate of 133 per million population (pmp). The incidence ranged by 10-fold; from 23 pmp in the Ukraine to 237 pmp in Portugal. Of the patients commencing RRT, almost two-thirds were men, over half were aged >= 65 years and a quarter had diabetes mellitus as their primary renal diagnosis. By day 91 of commencing RRT, 81% of patients were receiving haemodialysis. On 31 December 2014, 490 743 individuals were receiving RRT for ESRD, equating to an unadjusted prevalence of 924 pmp. This ranged throughout Europe by more than 10-fold, from 157 pmp in the Ukraine to 1794 pmp in Portugal. In 2014, 19 406 kidney transplantations were performed, equating to an overall unadjusted transplant rate of 36 pmp. Again this varied considerably throughout Europe. For patients commencing RRT during 2005-09, the 5-year-adjusted patient survival probabilities on all RRT modalities was 63.3% (95% confidence interval 63.0-63.6). The expected remaining lifetime of a 20-to 24-year-old patient with ESRD receiving dialysis or living with a kidney transplant was 21.9 and 44.0 years, respectively. This was substantially lower than the 61.8 years of expected remaining lifetime of a 20-year-old patient without ESRD.Peer reviewe