Company Claims Room-Temp, Low-Pressure Hydrogen Storage

A company called H2MOF says it has found a way to store solid-state hydrogen at ambient temperatures and relatively low pressure. The tech is poised to undergo industrial-scale testing which, if proven successful, could address major challenges surrounding hydrogen storage and transportation.

Hydrogen is the smallest atom, but it packs an energetic punch. Many scientists have been keen to tap into this energy sourceas a potentially greener alternative to fossil fuels. But finding cost-effective and energy-efficient ways of storing it is one of several major hurdles that must be overcome before hydrogen can be more broadly adopted as an energy source.

The two main hydrogen storage options currently on the market involve compressing it under pressures between 350 and 700 bar (approximately 350 to 750 times greater than atmospheric pressure) and liquifying it by cooling it down to –253° C.

“Both processes are extremely energy intensive and generate energy losses equivalent to 15 to 40 percent of the hydrogen energy stored,” explains Samer Taha, co-founder and CEO of H2MOF. Both techniques also require expensive equipment and infrastructure on the hydrogen producer’s side, and in many cases on the hydrogen receiver’s side as well, hesays.

These challenges prompted scientists at H2MOF to develop a novel material that binds with hydrogen. Leading the research are H2MOF co-founders Sir Fraser Stoddart, who won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on developing molecular machines, and Omar M. Yaghi, a professor of chemistry at University of California, Berkeley.

H2MOF’s Breakthrough in Hydrogen Storage

The duo in 2020 began developing a porous, powder-likematerial, made of undisclosed molecular building blocks. The novel material is designed to bind with and release hydrogen with little energy input to facilitate the reaction.

“The bonding of the hydrogen molecules inside the pores of the material should be strong enough to retain the hydrogen molecules, but also weak enough to allow for their efficient release when required, without significant energy consumption,” explains Taha. The technology works at near ambient temperatures and pressures of just 70 bar, he says.

For years the holy grail for hydrogen storage has been to develop materials that have the right set of thermodynamic, kinetic, and physical properties to allow for low-pressure storage system in ambient conditions. H2MOF’s claims, if they are verified, are a significant advancement, says Marolop Simanullang, a research project coordinator at Air Liquide, a company that specializes in hydrogen production and storage. “If this can be demonstrated on a large scale and there are no additional devices to facilitate optimum storage–either for adsorption or desorption–then this is a major breakthrough in hydrogen storage technology,” he says.

H2MOF’s technology involves a hydrogen gas storage tank with the novel material already inside it, and requires no on-site compressors on the part of the user. The material is very durable and can run through thousands of cycles of hydrogen capture and release, so the tanks would not need to be replaced often, according to the company. What’s more, H2MOF also says that its hydrogen storage technology doesn’t require extra time to fill or drain hydrogen tanks compared to current hydrogen technologies on the market.

Commercial Hydrogen Storage at Low Temp and Pressure

Together, these initial results show promise, but more work is needed to explore the technology at larger scales. “Right now, we are advancing our industrial prototypes,” Taha explains. “After having tested these prototypes together with relevant partners in the industry, we look forward to commercializing the offerings within a couple of years and gradually scale up our manufacturing capacity.”

In particular, the company is focusing on three main goals: producing the material in the tons, increasing the size of the system’s storage vessels, and further optimizing the material to achieve even higher storage densities at low pressure and ambient temperatures.

Notably, storage and transportation of hydrogen is just one step along the path of using this energy resource, from generation to utilization. Producing enough hydrogen in an energy-efficient way remains challenging.

But Taha notes that the storage and transportation steps in the chain right now are one of the costly bottlenecks. “Without reducing the costs of hydrogen storage and transportation, we hinder the wider adoption of hydrogen and thereby the decarbonization of the energy system at large,” he says.