Hydrogen storage technology breakthrough can make cell-powered car use widespread

UK scientists have developed a compound of the element lithium which may make it practical to store enough hydrogen on-board fuel-cell-powered cars to enable them to drive over 300 miles without refuelling.

Washington, May 24 : UK scientists have developed a compound of the element lithium which may make it practical to store enough hydrogen on-board fuel-cell-powered cars to enable them to drive over 300 miles without refuelling.

The team of researchers from the Universities of Birmingham, Oxford and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, tested thousands of solid-state compounds in search of a light, cheap, readily available material, which would enable the absorption/desorption process to take place rapidly and safely at typical fuel cell operating temperatures.

Working under the auspices of the UK Sustainable Hydrogen Energy Consortium (UK-SHEC), which is funded by the SUPERGEN (Sustainable Power Generation and Supply) initiative, the researchers produced a variety of lithium hydride (specifically Li4BN3H10), which they said, could offer the right blend of properties to fuel cell powered cars.

The basic approach, they said, was to enable hydrogen to be stored at a much higher density and within acceptable weight limits.

Fuel cells produce carbon-free electricity by harnessing electrochemical reactions between hydrogen and oxygen. However, today's prototype and demonstration fuel-cell-powered cars only have a range of around 200 miles.

To achieve a 300 mile driving range, an on-board space the size of a double-decker bus would be needed to store hydrogen gas at standard temperature and pressure, while storing it as a compressed gas in cylinders or as a liquid in storage tanks would not be practical due to the weight and size implications.

So the researchers focused on a different approach to store hydrogen at a much higher density and within acceptable weight limits.

The option involved a well-established process called 'chemisorption', in which atoms of a gas are absorbed into the crystal structure of a solid-state material and then released when needed.

According to the researchers, achieving this driving range is essential if a mass market for fuel cell cars is to develop in future years.

However, development work is needed to further investigate the potential of this compound, they said.

"This could be a major step towards the breakthrough that the fuel cell industry and the transport sector have waited for.

It's due to SUPERGEN's vision of combining many of the leading groups in the UK to tackle this, arguably the biggest challenge for the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

This work could make a key contribution to helping fuel cell cars become viable for mass-manufacture within around 10 years," said UK-SHEC's Project Co-ordinator Professor Peter Edwards of the University of Oxford.

ANI