Hydrogen Absorption in Fluids: An Unexplored Solution for Onboard Hydrogen Storage

Adoption of hydrogen (H{sub 2}) vehicles has been advocated for decades as an ecological ideal, capable of eliminating petroleum consumption as well as tail-pipe air pollution and carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) from automobiles. Storing sufficient hydrogen fuel onboard still remains a great technological challenge, despite recent advances in lightweight automotive materials, hybrid-electric drivetrains and fuel cells enabling 60-100 mpg equivalent H{sub 2}-fueled automobiles. Future onboard hydrogen storage choices will be pivotal, with lasting strategic consequences for the eventual scale, shape, security, investment requirements, and energy intensity of the H{sub 2} refueling infrastructure, in addition to impacts on automotive design, cost, range, performance, and safety. Multiple hydrogen storage approaches have been examined and deployed onboard prototype automobiles since the 1970's. These include storing H{sub 2} as a cryogenic liquid (LH{sub 2}) at temperatures of 20-25 Kelvin, compressing room temperature H{sub 2} gas to pressures as high as 10,000 psi, and reversible chemical absorption storage within powdered metal hydrides (e.g. LaNi{sub 5}H{sub 6}, TiFeH{sub 2}, MgH{sub 2}, NaAlH{sub 4}) which evolve H{sub 2} when warmed. Each of these approaches face well-known fundamental physical limits (thermal endurance, volume, and weight, respectively). This report details preliminary experiments investigating the potential of a new approach to H{sub 2} storage: absorption in fluids, specifically liquid nitrogen (LN{sub 2}). N{sub 2} was chosen for this study because it offers unique advantages as an inert but lightweight solvent with high hydrogen solubility and is an abundant atmospheric component. H{sub 2} absorbed in liquid nitrogen (LN{sub 2}) can be lighter than metal hydrides, with greater thermal endurance than cryogenic H{sub 2} or LH{sub 2}, while being more compact than ambient compressed H{sub 2}. Previous researchers have examined H{sub 2} mixed with a variety of simple molecular fluids (N{sub 2}, Ar, CH{sub 4}, CO). These studies were mainly aimed at the general problem of fluid phase equilibria of H{sub 2} mixtures, and focused on identification and prediction of fluid/liquid phase boundary pressures and temperatures. In contrast, the present experiments are aimed at measuring the PVT properties of H{sub 2}/N{sub 2} mixtures with a view toward evaluating the applicability of these mixtures for onboard automotive H{sub 2} storage. To our knowledge, the experiments conducted for this project are the first systematic density measurements of H{sub 2}/N{sub 2} mixtures at cryogenic temperatures. H{sub 2}/N{sub 2} mixtures containing 50, 60, and 70%2mole fraction H{sub 2} were examined at temperatures of 77 K, 87 K, and 273 K, under pressures ranging from 500 to 30,000 psi (from 34 to 2000 atm), corresponding to molar densities of 15-30 moles per liter.