Metal-hydride hydrogen compressors for laboratory use

Abstract

The development of commercial applications of hydrogen at high pressure (300–700 + bar), for example in fuel cell vehicles and associated filling stations, necessitates the study of hydrogen capacity, and the safety of materials at pressures well above that of standard pressurised cylinders employed in research laboratories. This, in turn, requires laboratory instruments to have some mechanism for hydrogen compression as part of their operation. In this study, the use of metal-hydride compressors for laboratory applications is explored and evaluated. The reduced operating requirements of laboratory instruments, relative to industrial compressors, and the ready availability of laboratory heating and cooling methods, allows the use of relatively simple, single-stage metal-hydride compressors. A simple theoretical derivation enables the determination of the size and amount of hydrogen storage alloy required for a desired pressure, given the experimental volume to be pressurised. Practical requirements, both in terms of the hydrogen storage alloy, and of the pressure vessel, are discussed. Examples of working compressors for both manual operation to 1000 bar, and automated operation to 100 bar, under computer control, are also given.