Making hydrogen storage work for the new hydrogen economy

R&D Focus Areas:
Liquid organic carriers, Technology integration process improvement, Energy systems integration

Lead Organisation:
The Australian National University

Partners:
Hydrogenia, Evoenergy, Illuminact/ActewAGL, Global Powder Generation Australia (GPGA), University of New South Wales (Canberra)

Status:
Active

Start date:
April 2022

Completion date:
2027

Key contacts:
Professor Yun Liu – Australian Research Council (ARC) Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellow, the Australian National University
yun.liu@anu.edu.au

Funding:
Australian Research Council

Project total cost:
AUD$1.4 million cash contribution from ARC and GPGA plus AUD$1.1 million in-kind contribution, for a total AUD$2.5 million combined cash plus in-kind contribution.

Project summary description:
This project aims to develop an innovative Liquid Organic Hydrogen Storage (LOHS) technology and prove its energy industry potential. This project expects to expand and validate the performance, safety and scale-up potential of this new technology in an industrial context to promote the development of the hydrogen economy.

Expected outcomes include providing practical, efficient, large-scale storage technology for use in intermittent renewable energy storage and hydrogen vehicle refuelling, and addressing legal/regulatory implementation issues. This should provide significant benefits in cultivating the emerging hydrogen energy industry, strengthening industrial competitiveness, enhancing Australia’s fuel security and protecting the environment.

The industry-scale demonstration facilities of the LOHS technology have been designed and are currently under test (as of August 2024); the facilities are expected to be open for demonstration and various research by the end of 2024; it will be an Australia-first liquid organic hydrogen storage for 24/7 continual and scaleup operation. For anyone interested to attend, please email yun.liu@anu.edu.au.

Related publications and key links:

Book Chapter:

Z Abdin, C Tang, Y Liu and K Catchpole, Section 3 Hydrogen storage: 3.1 Current state and challenges for hydrogen storage technologies, in the book titled “Towards Hydrogen Infrastructure-Advances and Challenges in Preparing for the Hydrogen Economy”, page 101-132, Elsevier, 2024.

Journal articles:

Critical dehydrogenation steps of perhydro-N-ethylcarbazole on Ru(0001) surface
C Tang, P Permude, S Fei, TJ Frankcombe, SC Smith, Y Liu; Computational Materials Science 229, 112373. https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0927-0256(23)00367-1

Impact of host phonons on interstitial diffusion
C Tang, G Sun, Y Liu; Scientific Report 12, 784. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-11662-2

Large-scale stationary hydrogen storage via liquid organic hydrogen carriers
Z Abdin, C Tang, Y Liu, K Catchpole; iScience 24, 102966.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.102966

Natural liquid organic hydrogen carrier with low dehydrogenation energy: A first principles study
C Tang, S Fei, GD Lin, Y Liu; International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 45, 32089-32097
10.1016/j.ijhydene.2020.08.143

Higher degree studies supported:
Three PhD students, three Masters students, one summer student, two international visiting scholars and one undergraduate student.

 

Reviewed: August 2024