Numerical study of thermal effects in cryo-adsorptive hydrogen storage tank

Abstract

Hydrogen storage is an important issue in the practical application of hydrogen technology. Among various hydrogen storage technologies, the cryo-adsorptive hydrogen storage appears to have huge potential for a further research because of its high storage capacity at low pressure. In this study, a computational fluid dynamics model and a lumped parameter model are developed to simulate the cryo-adsorptive hydrogen storage processes. These two models are implemented on the FLUENT TM platform and MATLAB/SIMULINK TM environment, respectively. The thermodynamic behavior and thermal effect during the cryo-adsorptive hydrogen storage processes in a cryo-adsorption storage system are analyzed. Two adsorbents, activated carbon (Norit R0.8) and metal-organic-framework (Cu-BTC), have been studied. The pressure increases quickly at early stage and then keeps steady during the slow filling process. The temperature has larger gradient in the radial and smaller gradient in the axis. During the fast filling process, the release of adsorption heat leads to the temperature increasing in a short time when there is not enough time for efficient heat transfer; during the slow filling process, heat transfer becomes the main factor of temperature change. The effect of mass flow rate on temperature is more significant at the location near tank wall than the center location of the tank. A better external heat transfer condition and higher bed thermal conductivity lead to lower temperature level which will increase the adsorption capacity. V C 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.

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“…(2) Latent heat storage using phase change materials or PCMs (e.g., forming a solid state into a liquid state [67] for buildings). (3) Thermochemical storage (TCS), using chemical reactions to store and release thermal energy (e.g., in our case cryo-adsorptive hydrogen storage tank) [68].…”

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“…In addition, microporous materials with high thermal conductivity should be used in order to increase the kinetics of adsorption and desorption. For instance, activated carbons, which have been shown to be well suited for hydrogen adsorption with their many advantages [47], have an average thermal conductivity of about 0.2 W m −1 K −1 [131], which may decrease the efficiency of the adsorption-desorption compressor. Nevertheless, the use of composite adsorbents, such as mixed powders of flexible graphite and activated carbon, can increase the effective thermal conductivity of the porous bed [132].…”