Abstract
We proposed to add a hydrogen buffer tank between a natural gas reformer and a fuel cell to improve the efficiency of a fuel cell cogeneration system for residence. We developed a new hydrogen supply and storage system without forced heat exchange by using Metal-hydride (MH) as a material of the buffer tank. It is expected that this system have better energy efficiency and it is safer to use compared to conventional hydrogen storage system. In the actual operation, temperature and equilibrium pressure of MH is expected to change due to hydrogen absorption and desorption. Thus, heat exchange performance of MH vessels can have effect on the MH buffer tank's performance. Consequently, we made three types of MH vessels which have different diameters to demonstrate the effect of heat exchange performance. With the aim of obtaining the basic data, characteristics of hydrogen supply and storage were examined through the experiment.
