Metal hydride material requirements for automotive hydrogen storage systems

TL;DR

This paper derives material-level requirements for metal hydrides used in automotive hydrogen storage systems to meet DOE targets, revealing that no current metal hydrides fully satisfy these stringent specifications.

Contribution

It combines simplified vehicle models with metal hydride data to establish specific material requirements for on-board hydrogen storage systems.

Findings

No existing metal hydride meets the 2017 DOE targets.

Tank weight and volume are driven by refueling time constraints.

Minimal balance-of-plant components are assumed in the analysis.

Abstract

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has published a progression of technical targets to be satisfied by on-board rechargeable hydrogen storage systems in light-duty vehicles. By combining simplified storage system and vehicle models with interpolated data from metal hydride databases, we obtain material-level requirements for metal hydrides that can be assembled into systems that satisfy the DOE targets for 2017. We assume minimal balance-of-plant components for systems with and without a hydrogen combustion loop for supplemental heating. Tank weight and volume are driven by the stringent requirements for refueling time. The resulting requirements suggest that, at least for this specific application, no current on-board rechargeable metal hydride satisfies these requirements.