Performance of air cooled hydrogen storage device with external fins

Minimization of total weight is the major criterion in the design of a solid state hydrogen storage device for mobile or portable applications. The design should also address the requirements such as storage capacity, charge/discharge rates, space constraints, coolant temperature and hydrogen supply pressure. To achieve this, one should be able to reliably predict the dynamic performance of the storage device. In this paper, a parametric study of hydrogen sorption in an air-cooled annular cylindrical hydrogen storage device with external fins is reported. LaNi₅, which has excellent hydrogen storage properties is used as the hydriding material. The influence of different geometric parameters such as hydride bed thickness and fin height, and operational parameters such as hydrogen supply pressure and cooling air temperature are studied. Copyright , Manchester University Press.