LAUSR

In the present work, an experimental investigation is carried out to study the absorption and desorption characteristics of a metal hydride reactor filled with 1.4 kg of La0.9Ce0.1Ni5. A simple tubular reactor with an outer cooling jacket was fabricated. The effects of supply pressure and absorption temperature on hydriding rate and the effect of desorption temperature on dehydriding rate were analyzed. From the parametric study, it is observed that the supply pressure has a substantial effect on the amount of hydrogen absorbed than that of absorption temperature. The amount of hydrogen absorbed was increased by 45% when supply pressure was increased from 10 to 30 bar, whereas the same was increased by only 6.6% when the absorption temperature was decreased from 20°C to 10°C. The increment in the desorbed mass of hydrogen was 20.4% when desorption temperature was increased from 70°C to 90°C. To accelerate the desorption process, intermediate sensible heating was carried out. After 50 cycles of operation under different conditions, the amount of hydrogen absorption was dropped from 19.1 to 15.52 g at a supply pressure of 40 bar, whereas the amount of hydrogen desorption was decreased from 13.8 to 10.5 g at the desorption condition of 70°C.