Article

Thermal modeling of hydrogen storage by absorption in a magnesium hydrides tank

¹ Département de Génie Mécanique, (LEAP), Université Constantine 1, Route d’Ain El Bey, Constantine 25000, Algeria
² Université de Lorraine, Institut Universitaire de Technologie Henri Poincaré de Longwy (LERMAB & GREEN), 186 Route de Lorraine, 54400 Cosnes-et-Romain, France

^* e-mail: lahmer.karim@sonelgaz.dz

Received: 10 December 2013
Accepted: 13 January 2014

Abstract

This paper summarizes numerical results of hydrogen absorption simulated in an axisymmetric tank geometry containing magnesium hydride heated to 300 °C and at moderate storage pressure 1 MPa. The governing equations are solved with a fully implicit finite volume numerical scheme used by a commercial software FLUENT. The effect of the different kinetic reaction equations modeling hydrogen absorption was studied by the introduction of a specific subroutine at each time step in order to consider which one will provide results close to available experimental results. Spatial and temporal profiles of temperature and concentration in hydride bed are plotted. Results show that suitable method for our two-dimensional study is a CV-2D technique because it generates the smallest error especially during the beginning of the reaction. Also, its computational time is the shortest one compared to the other methods.