Testing Facility for Hydrogen Storage Materials Designed to Stimulate Application

based Conditions

A perspective presentation by

National Centre for Catalysis Research

Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Why This Presentation Now? • Intrinsic storage property is important• Also Important is the performance under

Practical conditions• Urgent Need to test storage materials under

conditions under day to day use• In this presentation one of the possible

models is presented for discussion

Why This Presentation –II?

• By 2050, the energy needs will double the present level

• Sustainable hydrogen based economy appears to be a viable alternative

• The key component of this change over is the storage

• Zero emission possibility• Large challenges for transforming the laboratory

scale to actual applications

• DOE revised by 205 5.5 weight percent• ~3.3 min for 5 kg H2

• Heat management - 35 kcal/mol H2 total release of 450kW

• Heat, kinetics and thermodynamics • Heat and mass transfer characteristics• Models are empirical and dimensionality of heat

transfer (conduction, convection and Radiation)

What is Challenging?

• This reactor setup has to be unique as it has to • enable to test the influence of the heat and mass

flow, temperature effects, flow or “dead-end” reactor loading, bed stability, storage capacity, filling times, grain size, and contamination effects, simultaneously.

Creation of Test Facility for Hydrogen Storage

The NIST Hydrogen Test Facility is described atwww.nist.gov/mml/materials_reliability/

structural_materials/hydrogen-pipeline-safety.cfm.

• TWI is building a unique test facility to allow a comprehensive range of mechanical tests to be performed in hydrogen gas at 1000bar pressure. Whilst TWI's current facility is capable of simple tensile and axial fatigue tests at450bar and 20 - 100°C, the new facility is capable of performing more sophisticated tests, including fracture toughness and fatigue crack growth rate tests from -150 to +150°C, in addition to withstanding the increased pressure.

• Once commissioning is complete, TWI will be undertaking testing as part of a project involving major automotive manufacturers in their search for the optimum material selection for fuel tanks and other components on hydrogen powered cars.

• Working with TWI, manufacturers will have the opportunity to carry out research and development work in a facility that is unique within Europe.

• For more information about the facility and TWI's work in this field, contactmcs@twi.co.uk

• The fuel cell test facility• The high pressure gas testing facility• The hydrogen sensor testing facility• The solid-state hydrogen storage testing facilit

y• The nuclear safety laboratories• The high flux reactor (HFR)• The european solar test installation• The vehicle emissions laboratories