CooltH Engines for Rapid Refuelling of hYdrogen road freight vehicles (Project CHERRY)

氢是一种关键的零排放燃料，可以在包括公路运输在内的许多应用中取代化石燃料。虽然燃料电池电动汽车(FCEV)可用于所有尺寸的车辆，但大规模的道路货运使氢气作为一种轻质和快速充电的燃料成为化石燃料汽车的理想替代品。虽然氢在单位质量中的能量非常密集，但它必须被压缩到高压(通常为350或700个大气压)以存储在车载压力容器中，以充分减少其体积，以便在车辆中实际使用。这带来的一个挑战是，在压力增加的同时，氢气快速压缩到汽车油箱中会导致气体温度上升。这种温度上升导致了两个问题。第一，温度越高，气体的密度越低。因此，在相同的车辆油箱压力下，车辆油箱中储存的氢气比环境温度下的更少，从而缩小了车辆的潜在行驶里程。第二个问题是，汽车油箱通常由碳纤维等轻质材料制成，这些轻质油箱中的材料无法承受高温(通常最高温度限制在85摄氏度以下)。解决这个问题的传统方法是非常缓慢地将车辆油箱装满，让压缩热通过油箱壁散开；或者使用机械制冷系统将加油器存储中的氢气冷却到低于环境温度。第一种选择是非常不受欢迎的，因为它否定了使用氢气的一些优势(能够快速补充燃料)。第二种是昂贵的，降低了空间站的可靠性，因为由于它们的移动部件，冷却器可能会发生故障。NanoSun专门生产低成本、超可靠的氢气加油器，并且已经成功地从加油器中淘汰了压缩机。压缩机价格昂贵，而且不可靠，因此淘汰压缩机可以大幅降低加油站的成本。NanoSun现在已经设计出一种低成本和可靠的方法来冷却加油器储氢器和车辆油箱之间的氢气。该项目旨在快速验证这项技术，以加快氢气加油基础设施的商业化进程。这项技术既可以部署在NanoSun的移动梯级加油站，也可以部署在传统的固定氢气加油基础设施上。一种用于固定氢基础设施的低成本冷却技术可能会产生破坏性影响，并显著加快推广速度。

Hydrogen is a key, zero-emission fuel which can be used to replace fossil fuels in many applications, including road transport. Whilst Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs) are available in all sizes of vehicles, the large scale of Road Freight makes hydrogen, as a light-weight and rapidly rechargeable fuel, an ideal alternative to fossil fuel based vehicles. Whilst hydrogen is very dense in energy per unit mass, it must be compressed to high pressures (typically 350 or 700 atmospheres) for storage in on-board pressure vessels to reduce its volume sufficiently for practical use in vehicles. One challenge this creates is that rapid compression of hydrogen into vehicle tanks causes a rise in the temperature of the gas at the same time as the pressure increase. This temperature increase leads to two problems. The first is that the density of gases is lower at higher temperature. Therefore, for the same vehicle tank pressure, less hydrogen can be stored in the vehicle tank than at ambient temperature, hence reducing the potential range of the vehicle. The second problem is that vehicle tanks are normally made from light-weight materials such as carbon-fibre, and the materials in these light-weight tanks cannot withstand elevated temperatures (typically maximum temperatures are limited to 85°C).The conventional solutions to this problem are either to fill vehicle tanks very slowly, allowing the compression heat to dissipate through the tank walls; or to use a mechanical refrigeration system to cool the hydrogen in the refueller storage to below ambient temperatures. The first option is highly undesirable as it negates some of the advantages of using hydrogen (being able to rapidly refuel). The second is expensive and lowers station reliability because, due to their moving parts, chillers can break-down.NanoSUN specialises in low cost, ultra reliable hydrogen refuellers and has already successfully eliminated compressors from its refuellers. Compressors are expensive and unreliable, so elimination has enabled dramatic reduction in the cost of refuelling stations. NanoSUN has now devised a low cost and reliable method of cooling hydrogen between the refueller hydrogen storage and the vehicle tank. This project aims to rapidly validate this technology, to enable accelerated commercialisation in hydrogen refuelling infrastructure. The technology could be deployed both on NanoSUN's mobile cascade refuelling stations and also conventional, fixed hydrogen refuelling infrastructure. A low cost cooling technology for fixed hydrogen infrastructure has potential for disruptive impact and significant acceleration in roll out.