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Hydrogen Storage

Ultimately if a fuel cell vehicle is to function efficiently it must have an efficient means of storing and delivering hydrogen. End users of hydrogen will wish to charge the hydrogen storage system of a vehicle quickly and efficiently as well as recover hydrogen from the system for use in the fuel cell power plant on the vehicle. Neutrons are envisioned to play an important role in the development of the engineered systems used to provide hydrogen storage onboard vehicles. To illustrate the potential of neutrons for analyzing hydrogen a storage device a metal hydride storage bed was imaged here in the figure.

This movie has three sections: the top shows the hydrogen charging the storage device where the non-hydrogenous components are removed; the middle is the storage device without hydrogen; and finally the bottom is the colorized image of the storage device and hydrogen during the charge.		     85 MB movie of hydrogen charge and discharge
Data courtesy Bob Bowman (JPL), Terry Udovic (NIST), Jack Rush (NIST).


Schematic of the storage device

Sketch of the storage device.

Photo of the storage device

Photograph of Sieverts' reactor, including the storage device.
Inquiries or comments: David Jacobson
Online: July 2004   -   Last update: May 2006