A novel compression and delivery system for hydrogen fuelling stations

氢气被广泛视为实现温室气体净零排放之路的重要组成部分。公路卡车运输的二氧化碳排放量快速增长，但对低碳解决方案来说尤其具有挑战性。氢可以用作添加剂，在短期内减少传统内燃机的二氧化碳排放，同时在中长期内提供一条通过燃料电池电动汽车实现真正零排放运输的途径。氢气作为运输燃料需要克服的一个主要障碍是基础设施；需要有加油站，能源投入不能过高。由于氢是在非常高的压力下储存在汽车油箱中--最高可达700倍大气压--压缩氢气需要大量的工作。除了能源密集型之外，目前燃料系统的可靠性还有提高的空间，以满足随着氢气汽车车队的增长而不断增长的需求。该项目将通过使用一种新型的基于离子液体的压缩系统来解决这些挑战，以减少在加油站储存氢气的功输入和压力。通过将加油站提供的压力与车辆油箱中的压力相匹配，将最大限度地减少为车辆提供燃料所需的能量，并减少对加油站压缩机的磨损。为了研究这一概念，SFU可持续能源工程学院的一个研究小组将与氢气技术和能源公司(HTEC)的行业专家合作，研究加油站中遇到的压力和温度下的液气特性，并开发可行的基于离子液体的压缩和输送系统的小规模原型。这项工作将有助于HTEC提升其在汽车加油站架构和基础设施开发方面的行业领先地位，同时促进加拿大在未来低碳经济的关键部分的技术增长。

Hydrogen is widely seen as an important part of the road to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. On-road trucking has seen rapid growth in CO2 emissions, but is particularly challenging for low-carbon solutions. Hydrogen can be used as an additive to reduce CO2 emissions from conventional internal combustion engines in the near term, while offering a route to truly zero-emission transportation through fuel-cell electric vehicles in the medium- to longer term. A major barrier to overcome for hydrogen as a transportation fuel is infrastructure; fuelling stations need to be available and the energy input cannot be excessive. As hydrogen is stored at very high pressures in a vehicle tank - up to 700 times atmospheric pressure - significant amounts of work go into compressing it. As well as being energy-intensive, there is room to improve the reliability of current fuelling systems to meet increasing demands as the fleet of hydrogen vehicles grows. This project will address these challenges by using a novel ionic liquid based compression system to reduce the work input and the pressure at which hydrogen is stored at a fuelling station. By matching the pressure supplied from the fuelling station to the pressure in the vehicle tank, the energy needed to fuel the vehicle will be minimized and wear and tear on the station compressors will be reduced. To investigate this concept, a research team from SFU's School of Sustainable Energy Engineering will collaborate with industry experts from Hydrogen Technology and Energy Corporation (HTEC) to investigate liquid-gas properties at the pressures and temperatures encountered in a fuel station and develop a sub-scale prototype of a viable ionic-liquid based compression and delivery system. This work will help HTEC to advance its industry-leading position in vehicle fuelling station architecture and infrastructure development, while enhancing Canadian technology growth in a critical part of the future low-carbon economy.