New storage system for cars powered by hydrogen

Researchers have developed an important part of a hydrogen-containing system for cars, allowing them to fill up fuel tanks within 5 minutes with enough hydrogen to travel 300 miles.

The system uses a powder called metal hydride to absorb hydrogen gas. Researchers have fabricated the heat exchanger of the system, bringing the coolant through the tubes and using fin to generate heat when the powder absorbs hydrogen.

The heat exchanger is important because the system will effectively stop absorbing hydrogen if it is too hot , Issam Mudawar said. He is a professor of science when a research leader.

Mudawar commented: 'Hydrides produce a lot of heat. It will take at least 40 minutes to fill the bottle without cooling, and this will be very inconvenient and impractical. '

The researchers say the system will allow the driver to fill the hydrogen tank in minutes. Hydrogen will then be used to power fuel cells and generate electricity to run the engine.

The study, funded by General Motors Corporation under the direction of GM researchers, Darsh Kumar, Michael Herrmann and Abbas Nazri, was performed at the laboratory of the hydrogen system of the laboratory chain Maurice J. Zucrow. , Purdue. In February, the research team applied for three patents related to this technology.

Mudawar, currently working with Milan Visaria graduate student Timothée Pourpoint and aviation engineering professor, said: 'The idea is to create a system that can simultaneously load fuel tanks and use linked parts. supply coolant liquid to radiate heat. This is a mechanical challenge because we have to find a way to load hydrogen tanks quickly while efficiently releasing heat. The problem is that no one has ever designed this type of heat exchange before. This is the job that we start from zero '.

Issam Mudawar, on the left, a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue, discusses the hydrogen-containing system for cars with graduate students Milan Visaria and Timothee Pourpoint, a professor of aviation engineering at the same time managing the System Lab. hydrogen. Researchers have fabricated the system's heat exchanger, which is very important because it allows for rapid system refills. The research was funded by General Motors Corporation. (Photo: Purdue News Service / Andrew Hancock).

Metal hydride is contained in compartments inside the system of 'high pressure'. Hydrogen gas is pumped into media with high pressure and absorbed by this powder.

Mudawar said: 'This process is reversible, meaning that hydrogen gas can be released from metal hydride by reducing the pressure of the reservoir. The heat exchanger is placed in a 'high pressure' container. Due to space constraints, the heat exchanger costs as little area as possible. '

Conventional cooling liquids flow through a U-shaped tube, crossing the length of the container and the heat exchanger. The heat exchanger, made primarily of aluminum, has a thin fin network that provides efficient heat dissipation between metal hydride and coolant liquid.

Kumar, a researcher at GM's Chemical and Environmental Science Laboratory, and the GM R&D Center in Warren, Mich, concluded : 'This is an important milestone paving the way for the creation of efficient hydrogen-containing systems. fruits, can be loaded several times in the same way as today. With newer and better metal hydrides developed by scientists around the world, the design of the heat exchanger is an effective solution for the automotive industry. ' Researchers have developed this system over the past 2 years. Because metal hydride reacts easily to air and moisture, the system must be assembled in an airtight room.