Hydrogen discharging and thermal behaviors of ZrCo based hydrogen storage beds equipped with heat-fins or metal-foam

Abstract A numerical study is conducted to investigate the influence of additional components – a heat-fin and metal-foam – on the hydrogen discharging performance of metal hydride beds. First, a three-dimensional, transient hydrogen desorption model developed in our previous works is applied to two different experimental metal hydride beds (MHBs): one with a heat-fin and the other with metal-foam. Then, the simulation results are compared with the experimental data measured during the heat-up and hydrogen discharging processes. The prediction based on the proposed model was found to be in good agreement with the experimental data in terms of the beds temperature evolution and the hydrogen discharging time. In addition, a parametric study is conducted on various MHBs with heat-fins or metal-foams that were designed to contain the same amount of ZrCo powder for comparison purposes. Our results clearly demonstrate that a superior MHB design should exhibit higher effective conductivity in the metal powder region and a lower overall thermal mass, which can be achieved by using metal-foam with optimum porosity.