Development Of Multichannel Activation Measuring Apparatus For Metal Hydride Hydrogen Storage Tanks

Hydrogen storage tank filled with hydrogen storage alloy is a new type of solid-state hydrogen storage technology.The metal hydride hydrogen storage tank has many attractive advantages,such as high volumetric hydrogen storage density,almost no pollution,and transportation safety.It will have a good application prospect in hydrogen fuel cell and hydrogen fuelling station.The metal hydride hydrogen storage tank needs activation treatment.There are many problems in the existing activation apparatus for hydrogen storage tanks,such as complicated operation,high energy consumption,low efficiency and so on.In order to overcome these problems,a multichannel activation measuring apparatus for metal hydride hydrogen storage tanks has been developed.The hardware structure of the apparatus including gas path system,thermostatic control system and control system was introduced in detail.The selection and function of components in the gas path system were introduced systematically.The gas path system was designed as a two-row symmetrical structure.The activation method of one row of pipelines for charging hydrogen and the other row of pipelines for discharging hydrogen was adopted,which can realize the heat coupling of cyclical activation.The designed thermostatic water bath in the thermostatic control system can realize cooling and heating,and temperature range is 10～90℃.The selection and function of electrical components in the control system were introduced.Based on Lab VIEW software,the software of the activation measuring apparatus was designed as a whole.Design principle,process of the test programs and software structure were systematically introduced.This thesis elaborated how to realize the writing and packaging of general modules,such as read/write configuration parameters,data collection,and data storage.New control programs including leakage rate test,cyclical activation and hydrogen desorption test were completed.The RS485 communication program was designed,which facilitates data transmission between the host computer and the flow accumulator.By dynamic call of the test programs,users can quickly switch software interfaces.The sealing performance of the activation measuring apparatus was detected by the froth law and the leak rate test method respectively.The volumes of the gas path system were calibrated accurately.To verify the operating performance of the equipment and the stability of the test program,two rows of metal hydride hydrogen storage tanks filled with LaNi4.75Al0.25 alloy were tested for activation and hydrogen desorption.The results indicate that the self-made LabVIEW test programs can realize heat coupling cyclical activation of 20 metal hydride hydrogen storage tanks,hydrogen desorption property detection and nitrogen package.This equipment has been used in practical production of metal hydride hydrogen storage tanks in Jiangsu JITRI Advanced Energy Materials Research Institute.It has the features of stable performance and high degree of automation,which significantly improves the activation production efficiency.