I-Corps: Metal hydride technology to miniaturize and provide new cooling or heating solutions

The broader/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a reusable metal hydride-based device for energy storage. The project will provide a compact and inexpensive cooling device for a wide range of markets. Potential applications of the metal hydride technology are in batteries, hydrogen storage materials, and thermal energy storage to harness excess energy and provide on-demand sustainable energy.

Current metal hydride-based device storage devices largely work only at temperature extremes, which limit their application in conventional storage systems. Thus, strategies are needed to develop storage devices for use at ambient conditions. The proposed technology may provide an efficient method for energy storage that will be a key enabler for future clean energy technologies.

This I-Corps project develops a cooling device that is driven by solid-gas reactions between a pair of alloys and hydrogen. Hydrogen storage by metal hydrides is accomplished by an intermetallic alloy phase that has the ability to absorb and store atomic hydrogen in interstitial sites of the metal lattice. Forcing the intermetallic alloy phase to release the absorbed hydrogen leads to an endothermic reaction which results in cooling.

Various metal hydrides have been investigated to determine the hydrogen absorption/desorption pathways and to identify the thermodynamic requirements necessary for dehydrogenation reactions with an equilibrium close to ambient conditions. Preliminary results have shown that at ambient conditions the metal hydride can be recharged 10,000 times with only 10% loss of capacity.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.