Heat and Mass Transfer During Hydriding

The hydrogen economy is a proposed scheme and technique of delivering energy using hydrogen. The hydrogen economy is committed to eliminate all of the problems that the fossil fuel economy creates. The advantages of the hydrogen economy consist of (Marban and Valdes-Solis 2007): (i) the elimination of pollution caused by fossil fuels, since the conversion technologies of hydrogen into energy are completely clean; (ii) the elimination of greenhouse gases, if hydrogen is produced using clean energy sources; and (iii) distributed production as hydrogen can be produced almost anywhere worldwide. However, the hydrogen economy faces several technological barriers before implementation such as the storage issues. The hydrogen storage in gaseous or liquid form presents serious safety concerns and requires high-energy input. The hydrogen storage in solid form, namely, reversible metal hydrides, is much safer and requires low-pressure conditions. Research on the design and performance optimization of the metal hydride tanks (MHT for short) is essential for the efficient operation of corresponding systems, thus considerable efforts are made in that regard.