HyStoRe Project

For the transition towards a hydrogen based society, the efficient storage of hydrogen is a key issue. Especially fuel cell applications in the automotive industry, the success of the efficient storage of hydrogen will determine the successful large scale market introduction. In contrast to oil based fossil fuels, hydrogen is an energy carrier which results in an energy penalty during the production step. Furthermore, for hydrogen to be a practical fuel, high volumetric and gravimetric storage densities are required. Different hydrogen storage techniques are based on high pressure hydrogen gas (up to 800 bar), cryogenic liquid hydrogen, hydrogen adsorbed on large surface structures (at low temperatures), absorbed at interstitial sites of metals, chemically bonded in compounds, and the hydrolysis of certain metals (Li, Na, Mg, Al Zn), each having its own advantages and disadvantages. It is recognized in one of our reports that none of the today known hydrogen storage techniques satisfy all the requirements. 

To get experience with hydrogen based (transport) applications, different types of hydrogen fueling stations and hydrogen storage techniques are being developed and evaluated.

Agip MultiEnergy fueling station Frankfurt: 350 bar, 700 bar en  liquid hydrogen (Project ZeroRegio).

Hydrogen fuel cell ship in Hamburg with cryogen liquid hydrogen fueling station (Project ZEMSHIP).

Fuel cell buses on hydrogen in Amsterdam, The Netherlands (Clean Urban Transport for Europe Project (CUTE project)).

Hydrogen storage in metal based compounds is potentially very attractive due to the high storage capacities at approximate ambient pressure and temperature. However kinetics, thermodynamics and deterioration of the storage capacity during repeated cycling often limits the practical use of these materials.   In theory new storage compounds like alkali borohydrides and alanates, ceramic carbides, multi component metallic glasses, Mg-Ti-H metastable random alloys, hydrogen clathrates, and nano-composites of new and existing metallic systems on carbon supports can meet the required goals. Under small and scale laboratory conditions, a few of these storage materials have been confirmed to be promising. To obtain hands on experience with hydrogen storage in metal based compounds on a larger scale, ECN started research activities on the field of hydrogen storage under real life conditions. The main focus of the research is to examine the practical challenges with respect to heat management, influence of contaminations in the hydrogen gas on storage properties, macroscopic reactor bed, loading times, etc. The project Hydrogen Storage materials and Reactors (HyStoRe) is a collaboration between several universities, companies and ECN to develop new hydrogen storage materials and a down scaled realistic storage reactor. The real life applicability of a solid-state storage reactor will be the quideline during this project.  

Schematic representation of the hydrogen storage reactor for the HyStoRe project.

The HydroGEM vehicle, developed at ECN, runs on a combination of a battery pack and a fuel cell. The hydrogen stored as a gas at 200 bars.