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Slush Hydrogen Technology Program

A slush hydrogen (SH2) technology facility (STF) was designed, fabricated, and assembled by a contractor team of McDonnell Douglas Aerospace (MDA), Martin Marietta Aerospace Group (MMAG), and Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (APCI). The STF consists of a slush generator which uses the freeze-thaw production process, a vacuum subsystem, a test tank which simulates the NASP vehicle, a triple point hydrogen receiver tank, a transfer subsystem, a sample bottle, a pressurization system, and a complete instrumentation and control subsystem. The STF was fabricated, checked-out, and made ready for testing under this contract. The actual SH2 testing was performed under the NASP consortium following NASP teaming. Pre-STF testing verified SH2 production methods, validated special SH2 instrumentation, and performed limited SH2 pressurization and expulsion tests which demonstrated the need for gaseous helium pre-pressurized of SH2 to control pressure collapse. The STF represents cutting-edge technology development by an effective Government-Industry team under very tight cost and schedule constraints.

Cady, Edwin C.↗

DOE Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and Infrastructure Technologies Program Integrated Hydrogen Production, Purification and Compression System

The project was started in April 2005 with the objective to meet the DOE target of delivered hydrogen of <$1.50/gge, which was later revised by DOE to $2-$3/gge range for hydrogen to be competitive with gasoline as a fuel for vehicles. For small, on-site hydrogen plants being evaluated at the time for refueling stations (the 'forecourt'), it was determined that capital cost is the main contributor to the high cost of delivered hydrogen. The concept of this project was to reduce the cost by combining unit operations for the entire generation, purification, and compression system (refer to Figure 1). To accomplish this, the Fluid Bed Membrane Reactor (FBMR) developed by MRT was used. The FBMR has hydrogen selective, palladium-alloy membrane modules immersed in the reformer vessel, thereby directly producing high purity hydrogen in a single step. The continuous removal of pure hydrogen from the reformer pushes the equilibrium 'forward', thereby maximizing the productivity with an associated reduction in the cost of product hydrogen. Additional gains were envisaged by the integration of the novel Metal Hydride Hydrogen Compressor (MHC) developed by Ergenics, which compresses hydrogen from 0.5 bar (7 psia) to 350 bar (5,076 psia) or higher in a single unit using thermal energy. Excess energy from the reformer provides up to 25% of the power used for driving the hydride compressor so that system integration improved efficiency. Hydrogen from the membrane reformer is of very high, fuel cell vehicle (FCV) quality (purity over 99.99%), eliminating the need for a separate purification step. The hydride compressor maintains hydrogen purity because it does not have dynamic seals or lubricating oil. The project team set out to integrate the membrane reformer developed by MRT and the hydride compression system developed by Ergenics in a single package. This was expected to result in lower cost and higher efficiency compared to conventional hydrogen production technologies. The overall objective was to develop an integrated system to directly produce high pressure, high-purity hydrogen from a single unit, which can meet the DOE cost H2 cost target of $2 - $3/gge when mass produced. The project was divided into two phases with the following tasks and corresponding milestones, targets and decision points. Phase 1 - Task 1 - Verify feasibility of the concept, perform a detailed techno-economic analysis, and develop a test plan; and Task 2: Build and experimentally test a Proof of Concept (POC) integrated membrane reformer/metal hydride compressor system. Phase 2 - Task 3: Build an Advanced Prototype (AP) system with modifications based on POC learning and demonstrate at a commercial site; and Task 4: Complete final product design for mass manufacturing units capable of achieving DOE 2010 H2 cost and performance targets.

02 PETROLEUM↗

Hydrogen Technology Research at SRNL

The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) is a U.S. Department of Energy research and development laboratory located at the Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, South Carolina. SRNL has over 50 years of experience in developing and applying hydrogen technology, both through its national defense activities as well as through its recent activities with the DOE Hydrogen Programs. The hydrogen technical staff at SRNL comprises over 90 scientists, engineers and technologists. SRNL has ongoing R&D initiatives in a variety of hydrogen storage areas, including metal hydrides, complex hydrides, chemical hydrides and carbon nanotubes. SRNL has over 25 years of experience in metal hydrides and solid-state hydrogen storage research, development and demonstration. As part of its defense mission at SRS, SRNL developed, designed, demonstrated and provides ongoing technical support for the largest hydrogen processing facility in the world based on the integrated use of metal hydrides for hydrogen storage, separation, and compression. The SRNL has been active in teaming with academic and industrial partners to advance hydrogen technology. A primary focus of SRNL's R&D has been hydrogen storage using metal and complex hydrides. SRNL and its Hydrogen Technology Research Laboratory have been very successful in leveraging their defense infrastructure, capabilities and investments to help solve this country's energy problems. SRNL has participated in projects to convert public transit and utility vehicles for operation using hydrogen fuel. Two major projects include the H2Fuel Bus and an Industrial Fuel Cell Vehicle (IFCV) also known as the GATOR{trademark}. Both of these projects were funded by DOE and cost shared by industry. These are discussed further in Section 3.0, Demonstration Projects. In addition to metal hydrides technology, the SRNL Hydrogen group has done extensive R&D in other hydrogen technologies, including membrane filters for H2 separation, doped carbon nanotubes, storage vessel design and optimization, chemical hydrides, hydrogen compressors and hydrogen production using nuclear energy. Several of these are discussed further in Section 2, SRNL Hydrogen Research and Development.

08 HYDROGEN↗

2012 DOE Vehicle Technologies Program Annual Merit Review

The 2012 DOE Hydrogen Program and Vehicle Technologies Program Annual Merit Review and Peer Evaluation Meeting was held May 14-18, 2012 in Crystal City, Virginia. The review encompassed all of the work done by the Hydrogen Program and the Vehicle Technologies Program: a total of 309 individual activities were reviewed for Vehicle Technologies, by a total of 189 reviewers. A total of 1,473 individual review responses were received for the technical reviews.

merit review↗

Status of the DOE (STOR)-sponsored national program on hydrogen production from water via thermochemical cycles

The program structure is presented. The activities of the thermochemical cycles program are grouped according to the following categories: (1) specific cycle development, (2) support research and technology, (3) cycle evaluation. Specific objectives and status of on-going activities are discussed. Chemical reaction series for the production of hydrogen are presented. Efficiency and economic evaluations are also discussed.

Baker, C. E.↗

Overview of the U.S. DOE Hydrogen Safety, Codes and Standards Program. Part 4: Hydrogen Sensors; Preprint

Hydrogen sensors are recognized as a critical element in the safety design for any hydrogen system. In this role, sensors can perform several important functions including indication of unintended hydrogen releases, activation of mitigation strategies to preclude the development of dangerous situations, activation of alarm systems and communication to first responders, and to initiate system shutdown. The functionality of hydrogen sensors in this capacity is decoupled from the system being monitored, thereby providing an independent safety component that is not affected by the system itself. The importance of hydrogen sensors has been recognized by DOE and by the Fuel Cell Technologies Office's Safety and Codes Standards (SCS) program in particular, which has for several years supported hydrogen safety sensor research and development. The SCS hydrogen sensor programs are currently led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The current SCS sensor program encompasses the full range of issues related to safety sensors, including development of advance sensor platforms with exemplary performance, development of sensor-related code and standards, outreach to stakeholders on the role sensors play in facilitating deployment, technology evaluation, and support on the proper selection and use of sensors.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗

Modeling DWPF Hydrogen Gas Retention and Release

Savannah River Remediation (SRR) currently manages the risk for retained hydrogen in the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) vessels by implementing a Retained Hydrogen Program. The current program conservatively relies on bounding assumptions concerning gas release and retention to develop allowable vessel Q-times. SRR would like to establish more realistic inputs to the Retained Hydrogen Program. To address this need, SRNL conducted a literature search on work investigating the retention and release of gas from DWPF type slurries. The search revealed that the retained hydrogen is not released instantaneously upon the start of agitation, and that hydrogen gas could be released under quiescent, non-agitated, conditions. The literature search also identified a Lattice-Boltzmann computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software that could model and predict hydrogen release from DWPF vessels. SRR requested that Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) personnel pursue this software and focus the model for hydrogen gas retention and release to justify relaxing these conservative assumptions. This report documents the refinement of the CFD software model and application to show its ability to describe retained hydrogen release from DWPF vessels and relax the conservativisms in the Retained Hydrogen Program.

08 HYDROGEN↗

A Summary of the Slush Hydrogen Technology Program for the National Aero-Space Plane

Slush hydrogen, a mixture of solid and liquid hydrogen, offers advantages of higher density (16 percent) and higher heat capacity (18 percent) than normal boiling point hydrogen. The combination of increased density and heat capacity of slush hydrogen provided a potential to decrease the gross takeoff weight of the National Aero-Space Plane (NASP) and therefore slush hydrogen was selected as the propellant. However, no large-scale data was available on the production, transfer and tank pressure control characteristics required to use slush hydrogen as a fuel. Extensive testing has been performed at the NASA Lewis Research Center K-Site and Small Scale Hydrogen Test Facility between 1990 and the present to provide a database for the use of slush hydrogen. This paper summarizes the results of this testing.

Mcnelis, Nancy B.↗