TU-TESL

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According to foreign media reports, employees of the Argonne National Laboratory of the U.S. Department of energy (DOE) have developed a technology that can reduce the hydrogenation cost and improve the hydrogenation efficiency of the hydrogenation station, and commercialized the technology, which has won great praise. It is expected that the technology can reduce the cost paid by car customers. (photo source: Argonne National Laboratory) the Federal Laboratory Alliance (FLC) awarded the excellence in technology transfer to the hydrogenation technology developed by Argonne National Laboratory researchers amgad elgowainy and Krishna reddi. Argonne laboratory also transferred the technology to PDC machines, a global compressor manufacturer, through cooperative research and development agreement, technology licensing agreement and other mechanisms. The technology developed by Argonne lab researchers can solve an obstacle to the widespread adoption of hydrogen fuel, that is, the high cost of deploying and operating hydrogenation stations. "Consumers pay about half of the cost of the station itself and the other half is the cost of the compressor," elgowainy said Elgowainy and his colleagues studied ways to reduce the cost of hydrogenation station, mainly for hydrogen compressor, which is a particularly expensive equipment. The researchers found that although the cost of each compressor is $500000 or more, the operating efficiency is very low. In order to meet the demand of hydrogenation in the peak period, the size of compressor is usually large; but in the off peak period, the compressor is mostly idle, far lower than the full load operation. The solution of the research team is to develop the "pressure consolidation" technology to improve the hydrogenation capacity of the compressor by providing high-pressure hydrogen to the compressor. The team's solution takes into account the basic working principle of the compressor and the hourly hydrogenation demand of a typical hydrogenation station. Traditionally, hydrogen supply and storage system (fixed energy storage system on site or on the pipeline Trailer transporting hydrogen) is used in the hydrogenation station to store the hydrogen finally supplied to the compressor. When the vehicle arrives at the hydrogenation station, the hydrogen will leave the energy storage system, enter the compressor for pressurization, then be delivered to the filling gun, and finally enter the vehicle. During the day, as more and more hydrogen is added to the vehicle, the pressure in the hydrogen storage system will drop. With the decrease of pressure, the density of hydrogen entering the compressor will also decrease, thus reducing the hydrogen supply capacity of the compressor. The team's technology can increase the pressure to store hydrogen in hydrogen containers when the demand for hydrogen fuel is low. When the demand for hydrogen fuel picks up, the compressor receives a stream of high-pressure hydrogen, so as to maintain the hydrogen supply capacity of the compressor at a higher level, improve the hydrogen supply capacity of the hydrogenation station, and maintain a faster hydrogenation speed at the peak demand. The patented pressurization technology can save 30% of the equipment cost for the hydrogenation station operator, minimize the idle time of the compressor, and improve the fuel delivery efficiency of the pipeline Trailer by more than 20%.