Experimental investigation on absorption and desorption characteristics of La _0.9 Ce _0.1 Ni ₅ for hydrogen storage application

Abstract

Summary In the present work, an experimental investigation is carried out to study the absorption and desorption characteristics of a metal hydride reactor filled with 1.4 kg of La0.9Ce0.1Ni5. A simple tubular reactor with an outer cooling jacket was fabricated. The effects of supply pressure and absorption temperature on hydriding rate and the effect of desorption temperature on dehydriding rate were analyzed. From the parametric study, it is observed that the supply pressure has a substantial effect on the amount of hydrogen absorbed than that of absorption temperature. The amount of hydrogen absorbed was increased by 45% when supply pressure was increased from 10 to 30 bar, whereas the same was increased by only 6.6% when the absorption temperature was decreased from 20°C to 10°C. The increment in the desorbed mass of hydrogen was 20.4% when desorption temperature was increased from 70°C to 90°C. To accelerate the desorption process, intermediate sensible heating was carried out. After 50 cycles of operation under different conditions, the amount of hydrogen absorption was dropped from 19.1 to 15.52 g at a supply pressure of 40 bar, whereas the amount of hydrogen desorption was decreased from 13.8 to 10.5 g at the desorption condition of 70°C.

Review of thermal management technology for metal hydride reaction beds

“…The rate of hydrogen absorption and desorption is closely related to the selection of MH materials and the heat transfer effect of MHB. Several kinds of hydrogen storage materials including Labased hydrides, 18,19 Ti-based hydrides 20,21 and Mg-based hydrides 22,23 have been well explored in the previous literature, which provides a range of hydrogen storage materials with different temperatures and plateau pressures that can be selected according to the needs of practical applications. The MHB composed of these materials has the same characteristics of a violent initial reaction, with a sudden increase in MHB temperature during hydrogen absorption and a sudden decrease in MHB temperature during hydrogen desorption.…”