CONCEPT OF THE AUTONOMOUS HYDROGEN FUELLING STATION BASED ON PHOTOVOLTAIC AND METAL-HYDRIDE TECHNOLOGIES FOR FUEL CELL ELECRIC VEHICLE. THE MAIN PRINCIPAL AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Authors: Zhipeng Xu , Tymoshevskyy Boris , Halynkin Yuriy , Tarasenko Oleksandr , Cherednychenko Oleksandr , Kostenko Dmytro , Proskurin Yuriy , Dovgan Dmytro 
Published: September 2019

At present time internal combustion engines (ICE) are the most spread as main and auxiliary ICE for vehicles, vessels, power generation, etc. Their application is associated with low energy efficiency, negative impact on the environment due to high emissions of harmful substances and the use of oil fuels. The vehicles with electric motors are alternative upon to existing ones.

There are two modern concepts of the electric vehicles: battery electric vehicles and electric vehicles with fuel cells. The main advantage of the battery electric vehicles is the developed infrastructure of power grids and charging stations, but the charging time is too prolonged (from 20 minutes in the fast charging mode and up to 8…10 hours. Unfortunately the fast mode significantly reduces life cycle of the electric batteries. One of the advanced alternatives is concept of the fuel cell and hydrogen powered vehicles. It exist some problems which limit its wide implementation. There are the following: high cost of hydrogen production, insufficient amount of electricity production and transmission capacity of electric networks for mass charging of electric vehicles. These problems can be solved by creation of the complexes for local hydrogen production by water electrolysis on the base of photovoltaic panels, hydrogen purification and compression on the base of metal-hydride technologies and hydrogen storage in ultra-light-weight high pressure thanks on the base of reinforced with carbon nanotubes or composite materials. Implementation of this concept will allow to get rid of disadvantages which are inherent in vehicles with electrical batteries. The most of these are the following: high mass and cost, limited run distance and long charging time, short life cycle and recycling batteries pollution. The charging duration of hydrogen high pressure tanks is 5...15 min and is comparable with the ICE diesel/gasoline fueling terms and conditions.

One of the main obstacles to expanding vehicles on fuel cells is the deficit of hydrogen and its filling stations. At present it is known a number of solutions for the creation of hydrogen fueling. However, today there is no single standard solution for hydrogen charging. Until today, vehicles running on hydrogen (both fuel cells and equipped with ICE that consume hydrogen), several options for its storage are used. There are high pressure tanks with hydrogen gas compressed at 35…70 MPa. Judging by the vehicles technologies and concepts the combination of fuel cells with tanks at 70 MPa will be the most common variant of hydrogen technology promotion in the coming years.

In connection with the variety of hydrogen storage options on board vehicles, it is actual to develop autonomous fueling stations with photovoltaic panels for electricity production with following hydrogen production by electrolysis, hydrogen purification and compression by metal-hydride technology and hydrogen storage in super high pressure tanks or metalhydride tanks with the possibility of hydrogen charging at different pressures from 35 MPa up to 150 MPa.