Charge and Discharge Properties of Hydrogen in the Alloy Hydride System with Open Cell Al Foam

The effects of use of open cell Al foam and thermoelectric element in a hydrogen storage system were investigated. Extremely different heat conductivities were observed in two storage systems with or without open cell Al foam. By applying the open cell Al in this hydrogen storage system, the reaction sensitivity of the temperature and equilibrium pressure was far rapidly increased than that without the open cell Al foam. During increasing the temperature by heating element, heating rate of hydride powders was very fast in the storage system including Al foam, while temperature of powders was almost not changed in system without foam. Also, in case of using thermoelectric element, heating and cooling rate was very sensitive in the system with Al foam and heating-cooling cyclic behavior within the system controlled by thermoelectric element is seemed to be satisfied for some applications in industry.