Design and performance analysis of an annular metal hydride reactor for large-scale hydrogen storage applications
2022
Sunku Prasad, J. | Muthukumar, P.
The present study is focused on developing a modular design of a metal hydride reactor for large-scale hydrogen storage applications. In this perspective, an annular metal hydride reactor that is cooled/heated on both inner and outer surfaces is designed and analyzed. A numerical model is developed to study the absorption and desorption characteristics of the designed annular metal hydride reactor. Three configurations of the annular metal hydride reactor that could offer a weight ratio (i.e., mass of metal hydride alloy to mass of the reactor) of 2 are investigated. The first two configurations are of annular metal hydride reactor with only change in the heat transfer fluid's flow direction. The third configuration is the same as the second one, with extra radial fins inside the metal hydride bed. The main objective of studying the three configurations is to visualize the enhancement achieved in the reaction rate and outlet temperature. The results showed that the peak outlet temperature is enhanced by 3.6 °C with the second configuration. At the same time, the third configuration improved the absorption and desorption rates by a factor of 2.07 and 1.92, respectively, while the radial fins occupying only 4.6% of reactor volume. Further, a sensitivity analysis is conducted on the third configuration to analyze the influence of operating parameters on absorption and desorption times. Furthermore, the performance of the third configuration is compared with several designs present in the literature.
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