Computational Study of Hydrogen Storage Performance in Metal Hydride Reactors

Author(s):  
Chih-Ang Chung ◽  
Ci-Siang Lin ◽  
Ci-Jyun Ho

Hydrogen as the most abundant element on Earth is viewed to be a promising energy carrier. For transmission, hydrogen stored as metal hydrides is a potent candidate for its advantages in safe and reliability and being able to offer high energy density compared to the conventional ways such as high pressure gas and liquefaction. Metal hydriding is basically an exothermic process. The heat released will cause an increase in temperature and raise the absorption equilibrium pressure as high as that of the supplied hydrogen gas, which may in turn stop the hydriding process. On the other hand, metal dehydriding is an endothermic process. A temperature decrease can retard desorption and even bring down the dissociation equilibrium pressure as low as the back pressure to stop dehydriding. Therefore, reducing thermal resistance of the storage vessels and enhancing heat transfer of the storage system have become a critical issue for the success of hydrogen storage using metal hydrides. This work models the metal hydriding/dehydriding process in order to assess the vessel design on heat transfer enhancement to improve the performance of hydrogen storage with metal hydrides. First of all, the thermal-fluid behavior of hydrogen storage was modeled including gas flow and energy equations. The vessel is considered to be equipped with an air pipe at the centre line with internal fins. Detailed theoretical models that describe force convection of the heat exchange pipe and natural convection at the lateral wall are constructed. Results from the simulation show that the addition of a concentric heat exchanger pipe with fins can enhance the reaction rates. The work demonstrates how computer aided engineering can be applied to evaluate the performance of hydrogen storage designs, and help reduce experimental efforts in developing the hydrogen storage systems.

2001 ◽  
Vol 676 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Oelerich ◽  
T. Klassen ◽  
R. Bormann

ABSTRACTHydrogen is the ideal means of energy storage for transportation and conversion of energy in a comprehensive clean-energy concept. However, appropriate storage facilities, both for stationary and for mobile applications, are complicated, because of the very low boiling point of hydrogen (20.4 K at 1 atm) and its low density in the gaseous state (90 g/m3). Furthermore, the storage of hydrogen in liquid or gaseous form imposes safety problems, in particular for mobile applications, e.g. the future zero-emission vehicle. Metal hydrides are a safe alternative for H-storage and, in addition, have a high volumetric energy density that is about 60% higher than that of liquid hydrogen. Mg hydride has a high storage capacity by weight and is therefore favoured for automotive applications. However, so far light metal hydrides have not been considered competitive because of their rather sluggish sorption kinetics. Filling a tank could take several hours. Moreover, the hydrogen desorption temperature of about 300 °C is rather high for most applications. A breakthrough in hydrogen storage technology was achieved by preparing nanocrystalline hydrides using high-energy ball milling. These new materials show very fast aband desorption kinetics within few minutes, thus qualifying lightweight Mg-based hydrides for storage application. In this paper recent detailed results on the sorption behaviour of nanocrystalline Mg and Mg-based alloys are presented. In a following research effort the sorption kinetics of nanocrystalline Mg has been further enhanced by catalyst additions. Furthermore, different transition metals have been added to Mg to achieve a thermodynamic destabilisation of the hydride, thus lowering the desorption temperatures to about 230 °C. The newly developed materials are currently being tested in prototype storage tanks.


2021 ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
D. Korablev ◽  
◽  
A. Bezdorozhev ◽  
V. Yartys ◽  
J. Solonin ◽  
...  

Today, hydrogen is considered as an ideal choice for storing and carrying energy produced by renewable power sources since it is renewable, eco-friendly and has a high energy density. However, due to the low hydrogen storage capacity, high cost and safety issues of the conventional storage methods, several challenges need to be resolved to effectively use hydrogen in mobile applications. Solid-state hydrogen storage in atomic form in hydrides is a promising method of storage for this purpose, particularly because a double amount of hydrogen can be produced via hydrolysis reaction of chemically active hydrides. Among the metal hydrides, magnesium hydride (MgH2) is considered to be one of the most attractive candidates. However, the hydrolysis reaction is rapidly hindered by the passivation layer formed on the surface of MgH2. In order to improve MgH2 hydrolysis efficiency various approaches have been applied. This paper reviews recent progress on the modifications of MgH2-based materials by adding different type of additives, including metals, oxides, hydroxides, halides and surfactants. The introduced additives possess different catalytic properties due to their intrinsic physical and chemical characteristics, and therefore can strongly influence the hydrolysis reaction of MgH2. The most promising results were obtained for various salt additives showing that the reaction rate depends mostly on the additive type rather than on concentration. The effect of preparation technique on the hydrolysis of MgH2 – MgCl2 composites was studied in detail. The obtained results indicate that efficient hydrolysis performance can be achieved by ball milling of the freshly synthesized MgH2 with 5 wt.% MgCl2 and 1 wt.% TiC–2TiB2 additives. The combination of the applied approaches exhibited a notable synergistic effect on the hydrogen generation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (16) ◽  
pp. 5519 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Delgado-Diaz ◽  
Anastasia Stamatiou ◽  
Simon Maranda ◽  
Remo Waser ◽  
Jörg Worlitschek

Latent Heat Energy Storage (LHES) using Phase Change Materials (PCM) is considered a promising Thermal Energy Storage (TES) approach as it can allow for high levels of compactness, and execution of the charging and discharging processes at defined, constant temperature levels. These inherent characteristics make LHES particularly attractive for applications that profit from high energy density or precise temperature control. Many novel, promising heat exchanger designs and concepts have emerged as a way to circumvent heat transfer limitations of LHES. However, the extensive range of experimental conditions used to characterize these technologies in literature make it difficult to directly compare them as solutions for high thermal power applications. A methodology is presented that aims to enable the comparison of LHES designs with respect to their compactness and heat transfer performance even when largely disparate experimental data are available in literature. Thus, a pair of key performance indicators (KPI), ΦPCM representing the compactness degree and NHTPC, the normalized heat transfer performance coefficient, are defined, which are minimally influenced by the utilized experimental conditions. The evaluation procedure is presented and applied on various LHES designs. The most promising designs are identified and discussed. The proposed evaluation method is expected to open new paths in the community of LHES research by allowing the leveled-ground contrast of technologies among different studies, and facilitating the evaluation and selection of the most suitable design for a specific application.


2008 ◽  
Vol 587-588 ◽  
pp. 721-725
Author(s):  
Noé Cheung ◽  
Kleber A.S. Cruz ◽  
Noman H. Khan ◽  
Amauri Garcia

Laser materials processing has been widely applied in industrial processes due to unique precision and very localized thermal action furnished by the laser’s high energy density and power controllability. With the inherent rapid heating and cooling rates to which this surface layer is subjected, this process provides an opportunity to produce different microstructures from that of the bulk metal leading to useful properties. The aim of this work is to develop a heat transfer mathematical model based on the finite difference method in order to simulate temperature fields in the laser surface remelting process. Convective heat transfer in the remelted pool is taken into account by using the effective thermal conductivity approach. Theoretical predictions furnished by previous models from the literature were used for validation of numerical simulations performed with the proposed model. Experiments of laser surface remelting of Al-9 wt pct Si samples was carried out in the present investigation, and numerical simulations was applied for the laser machine operating parameters. The work also encompasses the analysis of microstructural and microhardness variations throughout the resulting treated and unmolten zones.


2005 ◽  
Vol 127 (12) ◽  
pp. 1391-1399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinsong Zhang ◽  
Timothy S. Fisher ◽  
P. Veeraraghavan Ramachandran ◽  
Jay P. Gore ◽  
Issam Mudawar

Significant heat transfer issues associated with four alternative hydrogen storage methods are identified and discussed, with particular emphasis on technologies for vehicle applications. For compressed hydrogen storage, efficient heat transfer during compression and intercooling decreases compression work. In addition, enhanced heat transfer inside the tank during the fueling process can minimize additional compression work. For liquid hydrogen storage, improved thermal insulation of cryogenic tanks can significantly reduce energy loss caused by liquid boil-off. For storage systems using metal hydrides, enhanced heat transfer is essential because of the low effective thermal conductivity of particle beds. Enhanced heat transfer is also necessary to ensure that both hydriding and dehydriding processes achieve completion and to prevent hydride bed meltdown. For hydrogen storage in the form of chemical hydrides, innovative vehicle cooling design will be needed to enable their acceptance.


Author(s):  
Jianhua Zhou ◽  
Yuwen Zhang ◽  
J. K. Chen ◽  
Z. C. Feng

A new numerical model is developed to simulate the 3-D inverse heat transfer in a composite target with pyrolysis and outgassing effects. The gas flow channel size and gas addition velocity are determined by the rate equation of decomposition chemical reaction. The thermophysical properties of the composite considered are temperature-dependent. A nonlinear conjugate gradient method (CGM) is applied to solve the inverse heat conduction problem for high-energy laser-irradiated composite targets. It is shown that the front-surface temperature can be recovered with satisfactory accuracy based on the temperature/heat flux measurements on the back surface and the temperature measurement at an interior plane.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Graetz

The possibility of using hydrogen as a reliable energy carrier for both stationary and mobile applications has gained renewed interest in recent years due to improvements in high temperature fuel cells and a reduction in hydrogen production costs. However, a number of challenges remain and new media are needed that are capable of safely storing hydrogen with high gravimetric and volumetric densities. Metal hydrides and complex metal hydrides offer some hope of overcoming these challenges; however, many of the high capacity “reversible” hydrides exhibit a large endothermic decomposition enthalpy making it difficult to release the hydrogen at low temperatures. On the other hand, the metastable hydrides are characterized by a low reaction enthalpy and a decomposition reaction that is thermodynamically favorable under ambient conditions. The rapid, low temperature hydrogen evolution rates that can be achieved with these materials offer much promise for mobile PEM fuel cell applications. However, a critical challenge exists to develop new methods to regenerate these hydrides directly from the reactants and hydrogen gas. This spotlight paper presents an overview of some of the metastable metal hydrides for hydrogen storage and a few new approaches being investigated to address the key challenges associated with these materials.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1096 ◽  
pp. 407-412
Author(s):  
Hui Hu ◽  
Miao Miao Li ◽  
Bao Shan Wang

Organic CHNO-containing high energy density materials have been widely used for storing large amounts of the chemical energies which can be rapidly transformed into heat upon various external perturbations during detonation. The sensitivity of the energetic materials is subjected to considerable concern for safety and maintenance. Periodic density functional theory with the all-electron basis sets were employed in this work to unravel the impact, friction, and electric-fields induced decomposition of HMX. The minimum energy paths for the N−NO2homolysis reactions of HMX in the bulk and gas phases were obtained. The surface-enhanced effect on the decomposition of HMX were calculated for both (010) and (100) surfaces. A general theoretical scheme has been proposed to assess the intrinsic mechanic and electrostatic sensitivities of the pure energetic materials.


2013 ◽  
Vol 681 ◽  
pp. 314-318
Author(s):  
Yi Luo

A heat transfer model for vaporizing in vacuum electron beam welding on magnesium alloy is developed based on the laws of heat conduction and energy conservation. The vaporizing time of the main metal elements in AZ series magnesium alloy is calculated using the model. The results show that the vaporization of Mg element will precede the Zn element under the affecting of high energy density electron beam. The vaporizing times of alloying elements are not entirely dependent on the level of the boiling point, to a certain extent, also dependent on the thermal diffusivity and are closely related to the latent heat of vaporizing and melting of the materials. The change of beam spot diameter of electron beam also greatly alters the heat transfer characteristics of electron beam heat source beam. As the strong vaporizing effect of Mg element will occur within several milliseconds, the keyhole induced by the metal elements vaporizing is formed only within several milliseconds, but also the deep penetration welding effect of vacuum electron beam welding of magnesium alloys will be obtained in a very short period of time.


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