J. Mater. Sci. Technol. ›› 2024, Vol. 203: 66-77.DOI: 10.1016/j.jmst.2024.03.018

• Short communication • Previous Articles     Next Articles

The relationship between thermal management methods and hydrogen storage performance of the metal hydride tank

Jianhui Zhua,b, Xi Linc, Lijun Lvb, Mingda Lia, Qun Luoa, V.N. Kudiiarovd, Wei Liub, Haiyan Lenga,*, Xingbo Hanb,*, Zhaowei Mae,*   

  1. aState Key Laboratory of Advanced Special Steels & Shanghai Key Laboratory of Advanced Ferrometallurgy & School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China;
    bShanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China;
    cShanghai Key Laboratory of Hydrogen Science & Center of Hydrogen Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China;
    dNational Research Tomsk Polytechnic University, Tomsk 634050, Russia;
    eXiamen Sheng Yuan Green Energy Co., Xiamen 361000, China
  • Received:2023-12-26 Revised:2024-03-04 Accepted:2024-03-05 Published:2024-12-20 Online:2024-12-16
  • Contact: *E-mail addresses: lenghaiyan@shu.edu.cn (H. Leng), hanxingbo@sinap.ac.cn (X. Han), mazw-fly@163.com (Z. Ma) .

Abstract: Solid-state hydrogen storage tanks are key equipment for fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen storage. However, the low heat transfer properties of hydrogen storage tanks result in the inability to meet the hydrogen supply requirements of fuel cells. In this study, different thermal management approaches were explored through the design of LaNi5-based solid-state hydrogen storage tanks. We experimentally studied the effects of different internal heat transfer methods, that is, expanded natural graphite (ENG), copper foam, and copper fins on the hydrogen absorption and desorption performance. We also studied the effects of external cooling methods with natural convection, air cooling, and water cooling, respectively. Under the same external cooling method of natural convection, a solid hydrogen storage tank filled with 5 wt.% ENG has similar performance to a tank filled with copper foam. Compared to natural convection, air and water cooling can significantly improve the heating performance of metal hydride (MH) beds by increasing the external heat transfer coefficient. The effect of water cooling is better than that of air cooling, and in these two enhanced performance conditions, the tank filled with copper foam performs better than with ENG. In the case of water cooling, by adding copper fins to a hydrogen storage tank filled with 5 wt.% ENG, the tank was saturated with hydrogen absorption in only 29.4 min, which is 55.6 % shorter than the hydrogen uptake time in a hydrogen storage reactor without copper fins. And its stable hydrogen desorption (1 NL/min) has reached 98.1 % of the total hydrogen released. The results show that the effective thermal conductivity and heat transfer area of metal hydride bed play key roles in improving heat transfer and reaction rate. In addition, heat transfer is more important than mass transfer to improve the performance of the hydrogen storage tank.

Key words: Hydrogen storage tank, Metal hydride, Expanded natural graphite, Metal foam, Fins