DOE Issues Solicitation for Vehicular Hydrogen Storage R&D

January 21, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS

Projects may support existing DOE Hydrogen Storage Centers of Excellence or may be independent R&D projects, according to the DOE.

R&D areas sought include new materials and concepts in the following areas:

• Advanced metal hydrides.
• Chemical hydrogen storage materials.
• Carbon-based materials.
• High surface area sorbents including bridged catalyst (spillover) materials and conducting polymers and other novel approaches.

However, applications in the following areas will not be reviewed: hydrolysis of sodium borohydride or pure undoped single-walled carbon nanotubes as onboard storage media, said the DOE.

For chemical hydrogen storage materials, offboard regeneration must be considered and concepts to meet DOE efficiency goals should be submitted, said the DOE.

The following applications are appropriate:

• Applications for new materials with improved hydrogen storage gravimetric and volumetric capacity.
• Hydrogen uptake and discharge kinetics.
• Energy efficiency.
• Operating temperature and pressure.
• Cycle life.
• Cost.
• Durability of materials upon exposure to contaminants.

Finally, the scope includes approaches for high throughput/combinatorial synthesis, screening and testing of storage materials and other 'novel" characterization techniques that can aid in and be applied to the efficient discovery of new materials, said the DOE.

R&D of cylindrical high pressure or liquid onboard storage tanks and offboard storage are not sought under this announcement and will not be reviewed, said the DOE. However, novel concepts for conformable tanks and approaches for moderate pressure (less than or equal to 150 bar) hybrid systems may be proposed.

Such projects will typically be high risk, "outside the box" concepts but with technical credibility to meet targets and potential for high payoff, said the DOE.

The total funding available for all new awards is $6 million.

National Hydrogen Storage Project
In 2003, the DOE issued a "Grand Challenge" to the global scientific community for R&D in hydrogen storage with open competition to universities, industry and national laboratories. This "Grand Challenge" called for the establishment of hydrogen storage Centers of Excellence on metal hydrides, chemical hydrogen storage and carbon-based materials/sorbents with multiple university, industry and federal laboratory partners.

In addition, independent projects were solicited on new materials and concepts, offboard hydrogen storage systems and analyses of life cycle cost, performance and environmental impact.

The new Centers of Excellence and independent projects, together with existing DOE hydrogen storage efforts, constitute the framework of the National Hydrogen Storage Project.

The National Hydrogen Storage Project also involves independent research projects that explore new hydrogen storage materials and concepts, offboard hydrogen storage needed for a hydrogen delivery infrastructure, standardized testing of hydrogen storage properties and analyses of life cycle cost, energy efficiency and environmental impact for hydrogen storage systems.

Some of the new materials/concepts being studied are:

• Nanostructured materials.
• Amine borane complexes.
• Metal perhydrides.
• Clathrates.
• Lithium nitride.
• Irradiation activation of materials.

Source: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Vehicle Technologies Program.