Two-Phase Hydrogen Mass Flow Meter for Fuel Transfer in Ground Based Infrastructure

Hydrogen is a nearly inexhaustible renewable and clean energy resource. The benefits of hydrogen energy sources include high energy potential per pound (especially when liquid), low to no carbon emissions in the production chain, renewable supply sources, and its widespread use as a fuel source in automotive and aerospace industries. However, utilizing hydrogen as an energy source has multiple drawbacks that prevent it from being widely adopted as a source of energy. The explosive potential of hydrogen demands strict safety requirements for hydrogen storage and transport. To efficiently transport and store hydrogen, it must be in liquid form which requires many specialized instruments to handle the cold temperatures (~22K). Additionally, hydrogen generation is not always a straightforward process. These complications make hydrogen a very expensive fuel source. A 2-phase mass flow meter is critical for advancing hydrogen infrastructure because most bulk hydrogen transfer is done in a cryogenic liquid state and natural heat transfer into the transfer lines/tanks causes 2-phase flow via boiling. This boiling phenomenon is nearly ubiquitous when transferring or storing liquid hydrogen, and yet there is currently no 2-phase cryogenic mass flow meter commercially available on the market. This means that all custody transfer is done through estimations based on weight and pressure which are not real time and do not take into account mass lost due to venting to the atmosphere. This can leave cryogen customers in the dark as to how much they should actually be paying for. In addition to accurate measurement during custody transfer, the 2-phase mass flow meter would be useful in verifying the efficiency of vacuum jacketed systems, trouble shooting process inefficiencies, and optimizing chill downs. Once successful, the 2-phase flow meter can also be converted to measure other cryogens such as oxygen, methane, and nitrogen. In phase I of the project, industry stakeholders will be consulted, a prototype system will be designed to record and interact with data from multiple cryogenic flow conditions, the system will be tested on N2 flow loop, and field prototypes with improved accuracy and field-worthiness will be designed for phase II. Commercial benefits of this system include all hydrogen energy generation, hydrogen storage, and hydrogen research, and hydrogen consumption companies.