A novel hydrogen refueling station based on metal hydride compressor for 15 min fueling of hydrogen trucks - design, process and control optimization

In this work we present a novel hydrogen refueling station based on metal hydride combined storage and compression designed for fast refueling of standard Hyundai hydrogen trucks. The compression is achieved in two stages from 30 bar(a) to 410 bar(a) with 28 kg hydrogen capacity. The 15 min fast fueling of H2 trucks is achieved by using a thermal storage to supply a high thermal power to the high-pressure metal hydrides compression stage. The detailed design and process optimization is performed using multi objective optimization. The energy reduction achieved in the low-pressure stage is 32 % and the size of the thermal storage is reduced by almost 3 times. A control logic is presented for the fueling according to the fueling protocol limitations. The dispenser pressure is successfully maintained within the protocol pressure corridor, while maintaining both mass flow rate and temperature of hydrogen in the tank within the safety limits.