Hy-MAP 2.0 - Hydrogen mapping in hydrogen storage materials

日益严峻的环境挑战已使脱碳成为全球优先事项。可再生能源是脱碳的关键，但它们的广泛应用需要**足够的储能技术**来平衡间歇性可再生能源供应与电力需求的错配。为了实现这一目标，氢气被公认为是一种非常合适的可再生能源载体。氢气的储存是出了名的困难，因为传统的储存方法需要极端的条件(如高压或低温)。在H2 GO，我们已经**开发和部署了**固态氢存储技术，它是传统存储技术的**更安全、更便宜和更密集的替代技术**。我们的技术利用氢与其他分子形成的可逆化学键，允许在**数千次**的循环中存储和释放氢。但是，当我们在我们的专利存储技术中应用这些循环时，我们观察到当我们的存储材料**暴露在氧气和水分子**(例如空气中的水分)中时，会产生**氧化效应**，这可能会影响它们的性能和寿命。随着我们扩大生产规模，我们的人工反应器灌装过程**需要升级为自动化过程**，同时**减轻灌装过程中的任何氧化影响**。因此，了解氧化的确切影响以及它们最有可能发生的时间将使我们能够有针对性地填充我们的反应堆，从而使我们的产品更高效和更具竞争力。利用国家物理实验室(NPL)最先进的设施和准备参考气体的专业知识，我们将对我们的存储材料进行**这些氧化影响**的详细调查，提供关于最合适的自动填充过程的有价值的信息。我们将使用纳米SIMS(二次离子质谱仪)，以确定一组专门准备的参考气体造成的氧化影响和程度。SIMS是能够以100纳米空间分辨率绘制氢和氧同位素分布图的少有技术之一。我们将使用这种方法来**检查我们的储氢材料与氧气和水分子的关系**以及它们可能给我们的材料带来的影响。全球**很少有**实验室**在**同一屋檐下**拥有这些能力和专业知识**，因此NPL处于有利地位来应对这些测量挑战。

The growing environmental challenges have made decarbonisation a global priority. Renewable energy is key for decarbonisation, but their broad deployment requires **sufficient energy storage technologies** to balance the mismatch of intermittent renewable supply with electricity demand. Towards this goal, hydrogen has been rightfully acknowledged as a highly suitable renewable energy carrier.Hydrogen is **notoriously difficult to store**, as conventional storage methods require extreme conditions (e.g. high pressures or low temperatures). At H2GO we have **developed and deployed** a solid-state hydrogen storage technology that is a **safer, cheaper and denser alternative** to conventional storage technologies. Our technology exploits the reversible chemical bond that hydrogen forms with other molecules, allowing for storing and releasing hydrogen in cycles to be carried out **several thousand times**.However, while applying these cycles in our patented storage technology, we observed an **oxidation effect** when our storage materials are **exposed to oxygen and water molecules** (e.g. moisture present in air) which can affect their performance and lifetime. As we scale up production, our manual reactor filling process **needs to be upgraded to an automated process** while **mitigating any oxidation effects** during filling. Thus understanding the exact effects of oxidation and when they are most likely to occur will allow a targeted process for filling our reactors, in turn making our product more efficient and competitive.Using the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) state-of-art facilities and expertise in preparing reference gases, we will carry out **a detailed investigation of these oxidation effects** for our storage materials, providing valuable information on the most suitable automatic filling process to adopt.We will be using nano-SIMS (Secondary Ions Mass Spectrometry), to define the effects and extent of oxidation caused by a set of specially prepared reference gases. SIMS is **one of the rare techniques that can map the distribution of hydrogen and oxygen isotopes**, at 100 nm spatial resolution. We will use this method to **examine the relation of our hydrogen storage materials with oxygen and water molecules** together with the effects that they may bring to our materials.There are **few laboratories globally** that have these capabilities and expertise **all under one roof**, and thus NPL is well positioned to undertake these measurement challenges.