Fabrication and experimental validation of a full-scale depleted uranium bed with thin double-layered annulus configuration for hydrogen isotopes recovery and delivery

Metal hydride beds play an important role in the application of hydrogen-related energy. In the present work, a full-scale DU (depleted uranium) bed with the newly proposed bed design of thin double-layered annulus configuration was fabricated for hydrogen isotopes recovery and delivery. The hydrogen recovery/delivery properties and the thermal effect of the fabricated bed were experimentally investigated. It was found that the fabricated bed was able to achieve the hydrogen storage target of 17.5 mol H2 with a fast hydrogen recovery rate. Not only hydrogen delivery amount as high as 16.5 mol (∼94% of recovery amount) but also an average delivery rate of 20 Pa m3/s could be obtained at 450 °C, even though the hydrogen delivery time of the bed reached as long as 30.9 min. The fabricated DU bed also exhibited outstanding cyclic hydrogen recovery/delivery performances. Deterioration in both hydrogen recovery/delivery amount and rate was not observed even up to 10 cycles. Besides, it was shown that utilization of the water cooling loops drilled in the DU bed was beneficial to enhance the heat transfer and promote the hydrogen recovery process of the bed. Meanwhile, the internal structure of the fabricated bed was observed by ICT (industrial computed tomography). And the ICT results demonstrated that DU expanded seriously after hydrogen recovery/delivery cycles, resulting in the deformation of the filters in the bed. The experimental results suggested that the fabricated DU bed was technically feasible to be applied for hydrogen isotopes recovery and delivery in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.