A study on 70 MPa metal hydride hydrogen compressor

With the development of hydrogen storage technique using lightweight high-pressure hydrogen storage tank, high efficient hydrogen compression is of great interest. The objective of this study is to produce hydrogen with pressure of over 70 MPa by using a thermally driven hydride compressor. To reach this target, the hydrogen storage properties of La–Ce–Ca–Ni–Al family AB5 type and Ti–Zr–Cr–Fe–V family AB2 type multicomponent alloys have been investigated. La0.35Ce0.45Ca0.2Ni4.95Al0.05 alloy was developed as the first stage hydrogen compression alloy, and Ti0.8Zr0.2Cr0.95Fe0.95V0.1 as the second stage hydrogen compression alloy. With these two alloys, a double-stage compressor with hydrogen compression capacity of around 2000 L/cycle was designed and built, oil was used as the cooling and heat medium. When hot oil of 423 K is used as the heat source, product hydrogen with pressure of 74.5 MPa can be obtained, and the hydrogen flow rate of the compressor reaches 34.6 L/min.