Metal hydride hydrogen storage tank for fuel cell utility vehicles

The “low-temperature” intermetallic hydrides with hydrogen storage capacities below 2 wt% can provide compact H2 storage simultaneously serving as a ballast. Thus, their low weight capacity, which is usually considered as a major disadvantage to their use in vehicular H2 storage applications, is an advantage for the heavy duty utility vehicles. Here, we present new engineering solutions of a MH hydrogen storage tank for fuel cell utility vehicles which combines compactness, adjustable high weight, as well as good dynamics of hydrogen charge/discharge. The tank is an assembly of several MH cassettes each comprising several MH containers made of stainless steel tube with embedded (pressed-in) perforated copper fins and filled with a powder of a composite MH material which contains AB2- and AB5-type hydride forming alloys and expanded natural graphite. The assembly of the MH containers staggered together with heating/cooling tubes in the cassette is encased in molten lead followed by the solidification of the latter. The tank can provide >2 h long H2 supply to the fuel cell stack operated at 11 kWe (H2 flow rate of 120 NL/min). The refuelling time of the MH tank (T = 15–20 °C, P(H2) = 100–150 bar) is about 15–20 min.