Hydrogen storage in activated carbon for fuel cell-powered vehicles: a cost-effective and sustainable approach

   All the major economies across the globe have been working towards achieving a commercial viability of fuel cell-powered (FCV) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) amid limited fossil fuel reserves as well as environmental factors. Working in the similar direction, the presented work is an experimental investigation on ionic hydrogen storage in an activated carbon (AC) electrode integrated in a modified reversible polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) for transport applications that is carried out with an aim to check the cost benefits over the HEVs. A lab scale PEFC is developed and equipped with a self-standing porous aC electrode for hydrogen adsorption/desorption. The developed PEFC is test run and recorded parameters are compared with a typical HEV for cost benefit analysis using HOMER Pro microgrid software. The obtained results confirm the technical feasibility of the concept and showcase the lower cost of FCV compared to a HEV for a fixed span of running life time. The ingress and egress of hydrogen within the developed PEFC of 6.25 cm² active area successfully stored 559.65 mAh/g during charging and give out 510.51 mAh/g while discharging. Various such cells could be stacked either in series or parallel to meet the load demand of the HEV drive motors. It is a maiden attempt to present a real-time cost comparison between a FCV and a HEV that would contribute towards make a selection of future vehicles in a sustainable society.

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