Experimental verification to developing safety technology for liquefied hydrogen in the project "STACY"

田中 裕久*; 松村 大樹   ; 他10名*

Tanaka, Hirohisa*; Matsumura, Daiju; 10 of others*

Global efforts are being made to decarbonize the energy sector. Liquefied (cryogenic) hydrogen is suitable for large-scale storage and transportation due to its high storage density, so it is likely to play a fundamental role in the future hydrogen economy. The STACY project, "Towards the Safe Storage and Transport of Cryogenic Hydrogen", is investigating safety aspects of liquid hydrogen in order to overcome potential safety risks. Research is being conducted into passive autocatalytic recombiners using cutting-edge catalyst technology to enable them to be used in conditions where liquid hydrogen escapes, evaporates and forms a cold (50C) explosive gas mixture with the ambient air. To this end, the crystal structure of the catalyst was designed at the atomic level, an actual catalyst was prototyped, and repeated tests were carried out on a laboratory scale and in a large reaction vessel. Progress has been made in developing catalysts that can oxidize hydrogen even at very low temperatures, high expansion, and low-oxygen environments, are resistant to catalyst poisons, and can prevent spontaneous unintended ignition. The tested catalyst technologies use different carrier materials (alumina and ceria) to control the surface state of precious metals and suppress hydrogen ignition through a multilevel configuration.