Highly Efficient Smart Tanks for Hydrogen Storage

The commercial success of the Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles commercial success will require significant reductions in the cost of hydrogen fueling. Current fueling stations require pre- cooling equipment that chills the hydrogen to -40°C; this is needed to offset the temperature rise caused by compression during fueling to keep the compressed tank’s operating temperature below its maximum operating temperature of 85˚C. If the precooling requirement could be reduced or eliminated, the cost of delivered hydrogen could be significantly reduced. TDA Research proposes to develop a smart hydrogen storage tank that incorporates novel cooling schemes to quickly dissipate/absorb the heat of compression and keep the hydrogen gas temperature well below the hydrogen tank design temperature of 85°C with minimal impact on the cost, weight, volume, fill time, and well-to-power plant efficiency. TDA’s design maximizes the heat transfer area and the heat transfer coefficients to quickly dissipate the heat throughout the refueling process. In the Phase I of the project, we will design and carry out sub-scale proof-of-concept tests of the smart tank design at the bench-scale to demonstrate that we can carry out re-fueling from any charge state and ambient temperature conditions, eliminating the precooling requirements at the station. We will also complete a preliminary design of the smart hydrogen storage tank for FCEVs and compare it against the DOE baseline 700 bar system.