Hydrogen Fuel Technologies

View UF'S NASA Hydrogen Research Site

This expertise has been reinforced by a $10M NASA grant aimed at hydrogen production, transport, storage, leak detection, and fuel cells involving 28 faculty and 34 graduate students. Research is in progress in the areas of:

• Hydrogen gas production via advanced proton conducting membranes.
• Lightweight composite materials to build cryogenic storage systems for liquid hydrogen.
• Cryogenic two phase flow models to better design liquid hydrogen transport.
• Novel nano-sensor devices with low power wireless communications, energy harvesting, and power management circuits for hydrogen leak detection

Membrane reactors can be used to produce hydrogen from hydrocarbon feedstocks, from natural gas to coal to a variety of hydrocarbon containing waste streams such as landfill gas and swamp gas. Figures below show a laboratory reactor with advanced proton conducting membranes and the fabrication of membrane reactor tubes.

A mobile test facility has been built to demonstrate hydrogen production via ammonia-water combined cycle. The facility creates 5kW of electricity, a refrigeration effect and hydrogen gas from a low temperature heat source. The mobile facility serves as an educational tool to demonstrate various uses for hydrogen and methods for its production around the state.

Lightweight composite materials can be used to build cryogenic storage systems for liquid hydrogen. Graphite/epoxy composites and their sandwich structures have been identified as potential material systems. Studies are in progress to reduce material thermal stresses, micro-cracking and gas permeability.

Novel nano-sensor devices are being developed to detect hydrogen gas leak. These new sensors improve sensitivity, reliability, and robustness, while reducing power consumption. The sensors have high efficiency and low power wireless communication circuit and self-powered by energy harvesting devices for energy efficient, long lifetime operation. In addition research is in progress for microfluidic sensors with electrochemical detection.