Experimentally tuned dual stage hydrogen compressor for improved compression ratio

An experiment-driven design procedure for optimizing the combination of stages of a dual stage hydrogen compressor with enhanced compression ratio is presented herein. Three different combinations of reactors were used using LaNi5, Ca0.6Mm0.4Ni5 and Ca0.2Mm0.8Ni5 as hydrogen storage materials. Compression ratios were found to be similar for low supply pressure conditions, which improved significantly for high supply pressure conditions in single stage experiments. A dual stage compressor system with LaNi5 in first stage and Ca0.2Mm0.8Ni5 in the second stage was proposed based on single stage results, which was found to be very effective for enhancing compression ratio. Results show that 53% higher compression ratio can be attained by selecting appropriate storage materials for stages, compared to LaNi5 based economic dual stage system.