StoRelH2 – Storage / Release H2

Hydrogen is a clean and versatile energy carrier, which will allow to achieve the strategic targets of zero-emission mobility, decarbonisation of the key energy and industry sectors and integration of renewable energy sources. However, the nature of hydrogen (explosive, volumetric low energy density) makes its storage and transport technically challenging and expensive form an economic point of view. In this context the StoRelH2 project develops a new Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers (LOHC) technology, which offers safe, efficient, cost-effective and easy to handle hydrogen transport and storage. Our focus is to reduce the energy input (≥ 25%) needed for H₂ uptake and release and thereby to demonstrate the potential for reducing the H₂ supply costs.

The StoRelH2 project aims to reduce the temperature level (≤ 150 °C) of dehydrogenation (H₂ release process) and energy requirements and to demonstrate it at a technically relevant scale. The new liquid to liquid LOHC technology, researched at Fraunhofer ISE, is based on N-heterocycles with a wide liquid range. Due to the low dehydrogenation temperature and high H₂ release rate, this technology has the advantage to significantly reduce the energy consumption (≥ 25%) and to offer the possibility to use free waste heat and renewable heat (e.g. solar thermal) without consuming the stored H₂. Implementation of innovative reactor design, thermal management system and tailor-made heterogeneous catalysts, ensures the efficient realisation of the technical and (pre-) commercial objectives of the project. The demonstration plant will be operated continuously under mild conditions, using a single catalyst for both hydrogenation and dehydrogenation with TRL of 4-5. Life-cycle-assessment (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA) complements the StoRelH2 project in order to optimise the LOHC system from economic and ecological point of view and to compare its efficiency with other H₂ transport and storage technologies.