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A crucial problem in the development of new hydrogen technologies is the need for lightweight and safe storage of acceptable amounts of hydrogen, in particular for portable or mobile applications. A new and innovative technology based on capillary arrays has been developed. These systems ensure the safe infusion, storage, and controlled release of hydrogen gas, even when storage pressures of up to 1200 bar are applied. This technology enables the storage of a significantly higher amount of hydrogen than other approaches. It has already surpassed the US Department of Energy's 2010 target, and is expected to meet the DOE's 2015 target in the near future. The main determinant in this storage technology is the pressure resistance of glass capillaries. It is well known that quartz, for example, is three times stronger than steel. At the same time, the density is about three times lower which means that much less material is necessary to reach the same pressure resistance. The pressure resistance of single capillaries has been determined in relation to various capillary materials and dimensions, wall thicknesses etc. in order to find out optimal parameters for the “final” capillaries.

By Robert Pahl and Kai Holtappels* For the evaluation of the dangers of explosions, which can take place while handling H 2 S, only literature values exist, which had not been determined according to actual standard methods. Therefore the explosion limits of the two ternary gas systems H 2 S/CO 2 /air and H 2 S/N 2 /air were determined at 20 C and 1 bar(a) according to the bomb method of the new European standard EN 1839. A comparison of these measured values with the literature values results in a clear expansion of the explosion range for both gas systems. Thus the explosion limits for H 2 S/air were found at 3.9 mol-% (LEL) and 49.8 mol-% (UEL) in relation to literature values of 4.3 mol-% and 45.5 mol-%. Adding CO 2 or N 2 to the gas systems in particular the UEL was found at higher amounts of H 2 S than reported in the literature. Hence the LOC values are smaller. For the system H 2 S/CO 2 /air a LOC value of 10.5 mol-% (literature value: 12.1 mol-%), for H 2 S/N 2 /air 9.1 mol-% (literature value: 10.8 mol-%) was determined.

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