A design methodology of large-scale metal hydride reactor based on schematization for hydrogen storage

Hydrogen storage is now the “bottleneck” to realise the application of hydrogen as renewable energy. This is because most metals can reversibly absorb hydrogen. Undoubtedly, a metal hydride reactor (MHR) is the core device used in achieving the desired stable and comprehensive performance of a hydrogen storage system. This study made significant efforts to outline a design methodology and acquired an optimised large-scale MHR (> 50 kg-MHs) for various applications. It mapped and analysed the MHR research progress in the past 20 years with the aid of CiteSpace, and formed a brief scientometric review from the start. Second, the priority in various applications was concluded in a few keywords to provide assistance to priorities adopted. By means of pre-set MH categories, sketch configurations, and the input/output path of the reaction heat and filling mode, the initial outline of the MHR was sketched reasonably by comparing and referring to wide outstanding findings. The following optimisation procedure would give designers/investigators a deep understanding of complex and multidisciplinary MHR wherein absorption and desorption, and the resultant heat and mass transport, pulverisation, self-densification, and stress characteristics were tightly coupled. Subsequently, anticipative results were obtained by designing and simulating the capacity, system gravimetric capacity, system volumetric capacity, and other core dynamic indices. This paper provides a unified design policy based on excellent reported results which could serve as a roadmap for the design of practical large-scale MHRs and is expected to be satisfied with different application scenarios.