The U.S. Dept of Energy Hydrogen Program: Status and Performance Gaps of On-board Hydrogen Storage Technologies

The U.S. DOE Hydrogen Program's mission is to reduce oil use and carbon emissions in the U.S. transportation sector and to enable clean, reliable energy for stationary and portable power generation. The requirements for on-board vehicular hydrogen storage continue to be one of the most technically challenging barriers to the widespread commercialization of hydrogen fueled vehicles. The DOE-EERE hydrogen storage activity primarily focuses on applied research and development of materials and engineering to provide a low-pressure on-board system that meets packaging, cost, safety and performance requirements competitive with current vehicles in the North American market while providing at least a 300 mile (500 km) driving range.

This presentation summarizes the status, recent accomplishments and current performance gaps of hydrogen storage technologies for transportation applications. The research is conducted under framework of DOE's National Hydrogen Storage Project that includes independent projects and Centers of Excellence in both applied and basic hydrogen storage R&D. Material projects are focused in three main areas: metal hydrides; chemical hydrogen storage materials and hydrogen sorbents.

There are several new efforts, including the Hydrogen Storage Engineering Center of Excellence, which will provide a coordinated approach to engineering research and development of on-board storage systems.