Assessment on the Long Term Performance of a LaNi5 based Hydrogen Storage System

Metal hydride represents a promising candidate for hydrogen storage, because the technique is essentially safe, compact and flexible. However, the properties of the metal hydride tend to change in repeated hydriding/dehydriding cycles, which will inevitably affect the performance of corresponding hydrogen storage system. The effect is investigated in this paper by numerical simulation using a commercial package COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS 3.5a, and a typical material- LaNi5 is chosen for discussion. Through sensitivity analysis, the influences of variation in key properties over repeated cycles on the charging time of a tank-type storage system, are evaluated and some useful conclusions are drawn.