1 - Hydrogen storage technologies

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter presents an introduction to the potential applications for hydrogen storage and provides an overview of the different technologies available for storing hydrogen. The various applications have different requirements in terms of the mass of hydrogen needed, volumetric capacity, gravimetric capacity and cost. The conventional hydrogen storage technologies are compressed gas and liquid storage. These hydrogen storage technologies are the current state-of-the-art, but more compact means of storing hydrogen are needed for portable and mobile applications, solid-state hydrogen storage materials would appear to be the most promising solution. The chapter describes these technologies and discusses alternative hydrogen storage material technologies. These materials can be split into three categories: physically bound hydrogen, where the hydrogen gas is physisorbed to a high surface area substrate; chemically bound hydrogen, where the hydrogen has formed a chemical compound with the substrate, for example, metal hydrides and complex hydrides, and the hydrogen is released through a thermal decomposition; and lastly hydrolytic evolution of hydrogen (sometimes referred to as chemical hydrides), a variation on chemically bound hydrogen where the hydrogen is released through a chemical reaction, typically a hydrolysis reaction, for example, the hydrolysis of metal powders and hydrides.