Metal hydride compressors

R.C. BowmanJr., B.D. Freeman, J.R. Phillips, Evaluation of metal hydride compressors for applications in Joule-Thomson cryocoolers, Cryogenics 32 (1992) 127-137. 

Hydride Compressors using reversible metal hydride alloys offer an economical alternative to traditional mechanical compressors for GH2. The simplicity and passive operation of the hydride compression process offers many advantages over mechanical compressors. Hydride compressors are compact, silent, do not have dynamic seals, require very little maintenance, and can operate unattended for long periods. However, they are a very new and may be difficult to be built at the scale required for GH2 transmission pipeline service. 

Figure 16. Prototype hydride chemical compressor constructed by Ergenics and Denver Research Institute (top) front view (bottom) topview showing metal hydride tube bundle...

RES2H2 (Greek test site) Greece 2005 500 kW wind turbine, 25 kW electrolyser, 40 Nm3 metal hydride storage, compressor, filling station... 

The 220 l metal-hydride storage/compressor has been manufactured and used for production of high purity hydrogen. It provides the controlled gas leak-in at a... 

Hence our metal-hydride used in the storage/compressor possesses a sufficiently homogeneous composition with an excess of rare-earth metal what... 

Application of hydride heat machines (the HHM - the hydride heat pump (HHP), a refrigerator, a heat transformer, the compressor, the accumulator of hydrogen) is justified there where there are sources of low-potential energy or a plenty of wasted heat is not used. Systems hydrogen-metal hydrides promote improvement of ecological conditions and introduction of cleaner hydrogen technologies. 

Experimental compressor Solar thermal - metal hydride 120 bar... 

Rechargeable metal hydrides have a number of potential applications in the "hydrogen economy" concept and in the present industrial sector. Because general surveys of hydride applications have been recently published(1,22,23), we will not try to review all the potential applications, but rather concentrate on a few that might be particularly applicable to the hydrogen industry storage containers, H2 compressors, H2 purification or separation, and deuterium separation. 

Lundin, C. E. Lynch, F. E. and Snape, E., The Development of Metal Hydrides Systems for Hydrogen Compressor Applications, Ergenics MPD Corp. and Denver Research Institute,... 

The planned use of metal hydride gas gap thermal switches in the compressor beds of the Planck sorption cryocoolers [81,86,88] was briefly mentioned in Section... 

---