Controlled Permeation of Hydrogen Through Glass. Final Report

Storing hydrogen inside of hollow glass spheres requires that the gas permeate through the glass walls. Hydrogen permeation through glass is relatively slow and the time to charge a sphere or bed of spheres is dependent on many factors. Permeation processes are strongly temperature dependent with behavior that follows an Arrhenius function., Rate is also dependent on the pressure drop driving force across a membrane wall and inversely proportional to thickness. Once filled, glass spheres will immediately begin to leak once the pressure driving force is reversed. Practical systems would take advantage of the fact that keeping the glass at ambient temperatures can minimize outboard leakage even with significant internal pressures. If hydrogen could be loaded and unloaded from glass microspheres with significantly less energy and particularly at near ambient temperature, some of the key barriers to commercializing this storage concept would be broken and further system engineering efforts may make this approach cost-effective. There were two key objectives for this effort. The first was to evaluate the application of hollow glass microspheres for merchant hydrogen storage and distribution and then determine the hydrogen permeation performance required for practical commercial use. The second objective was to identify, through a series of fundamental experiments, a low energy, low temperature field effect that could significantly enhance hydrogen permeation through glass without application of heat. If such an effect could be found, hollow glass microspheres could be much more attractive for hydrogen storage or possibly gas separation applications.