Hydrogen storage solutions are a key technology in hydrogen economy to obtain clean energy in an economic and safe way. During the last several decades, there has been a significant progress about the materials, manufacturing technology and design and inspection methods. Nevertheless, the current solutions still have several economic, technical and environmental issues. ECOHYDRO aims to develop new technologies for fully (i.e. up to 100%) recyclable lightweight hydrogen storage tanks with a reduced whole lifecycle cost (at least by 30%) while increasing the safety and lifetime (at least by 50%) compared with the conventional solutions.
To meet the long-term needs of hydrogen storage, ECOHYDRO will develop support key elements leading to the reduction of whole lifetime costs of hydrogen storage technologies, the development of environmentally sustainable and circular storage systems, all the while ensuring the safety of the innovative hydrogen storage technologies. More specifically, we will consider the new generation of materials required for the storage of all forms of hydrogen and how they can be used in a circular economy business approach. In short, ECOHYDRO global objective is to ensure an economic manufacturing process of recyclable composite materials for durable hydrogen tanks through the usage of high strength carbon fibre, low viscosity thermoplastic liquid resin and instant in-situ photopolymerization for composite pressure vessels.
It is expected to increase security and service life of H2 tanks via sensors for in-situ monitoring of processes and structural health and uncertainty modelling of damage for reliability of the tank. In addition, the use of low viscosity thermoplastic resin aims to ensure easy impregnation, fire/flame resistance and recyclability of the thermoplastic. Finally, the instant in-situ polymerization has been chosen with the goal to shorten process cycle times and ensure energy efficient processes (with room temperature curing; hence without high temperature autoclave/oven post-curing process).
Specifically, ECOHYDRO aims to achieve the following objectives.
O1: Identify and develop multi-functional sustainable materials enabling a circular design and reducing the whole life cost of hydrogen storage solutions
O2: Develop standardised inspection and repair methods that improve safety aspects of hydrogen storage and increase the lifetime of hydrogen storage solutions
O3: Develop smart solutions that allow for cross-application uses of hydrogen storage to reduce the total number of storage tanks produced
O4: Demonstrate increased storage size and reduced capital cost for aboveground storage of hydrogen
O5: Demonstrate increased tube trailer payload, reduced capital cost and increased operating pressure for road transport of hydrogen
O6: Demonstrate increased gravimetric capacity, conformability, reduced capital costs, and increased tank gravimetric efficiency for onboard storage of H2 in heavy-duty truck and aviation applications respectively.
