Research Projects

The project aims to design a zero-emission heat and hydrogen energy storage system that can store about 50 kg of hydride material on a novel reactor bed. This system is designed to be compact for large-scale applications and has the potential to reduce energy consumption by effectively utilizing waste heat. The primary objective is to fabricate a novel spiral reactor with a 25 kg hydride material weight ratio of 2.33, superior to any other large-scale reactor developed by researchers. The secondary objective is to numerically optimize a fast-reacting metal hydride canister of 5 kg capacity using set optimization procedures. The developed thermal model processes sequential numerical simulations through the commercial COMSOL Multiphysics software package, validating the numerically predicted results to experimental data. The optimal design of the 5 kg metal hydride canister is chosen based on the US DOE target for Onboard Hydrogen Storage for Light-Duty Fuel Cell Vehicles. Five reactors will be manufactured and stacked to assess the collective performance of the metal hydride canisters by supplying hydrogen parallelly. The volumetric system capacity is quantified experimentally, and two large-scale novel reactors, each comprising 25 kg of hydride material, are subjected to absorption and desorption processes simultaneously to predict the storage time and useful heating/cooling power produced by these reactors. The project aims to develop a metal hydride-based hydrogen system that stores maximum hydrogen at a reduced time by a balanced trade-off between volumetric exergy rate and system weight.

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