Review on thermal design and thermal management for metal hydride reactors: Current status and future development

Metal hydride (MH) hydrogen storage is one of the most important hydrogen storage methods. In MH reactor, the hydrogen absorption/desorption rates are limited by the heat transfer performance, the thermal design of MH reactor is thus particularly important which facilitates rapid heat exchange. Besides, accumulating the absorption reaction heat and supplying it for hydrogen desorption by thermal management design is also of great importance on improving the energy efficiency of the hydrogen storage system. In this review, the current research studies of MH reactors is summarized with emphasis on thermal design and thermal management, and the advantages and disadvantages of different heat transfer structures are analyzed and compared in detail. Specifically, the effect of the thermal design of MH reactors on the gravimetric and volumetric hydrogen storage density is considered, and the hydrogen storage performance indicators for MH reactors are discussed at length. More importantly, the novel point of this review is the prospect of the future development trend of MH reactor thermal design and thermal management, which is the combination of MH reactor and intelligent algorithms and the multiple coupling of MH reactor with other systems such as fuel cells.