Light Weight High Entropy Alloys for Safe and Sustainable Energy Storage

Hydrogen is a key player in the green transition, as it is a clean and abundant energy carrier that can be used to power fuel cells and produce electricity with only water and heat as byproducts. However, one of the major obstacles in the widespread use of hydrogen as a fuel source is its storage. Methods of hydrogen storage, such as gas or liquid, can be costly and inefficient. The HESSENSE project aims to investigate the storage of hydrogen in light-weight High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) as metal hydrides (MHs). HEAs have the potential to be used for solid-state hydrogen storage, which is a promising approach for compact hydrogen storage. HESSENSE will take an interdisciplinary approach, combining experiments, numerical calculations, material development, and techno-economic assessments to investigate the properties of the HEAs and MHs at different length scales. The project will involve researchers from different European countries, as well as collaboration between research institutes, universities, and industry. The goal is to develop HEA-based hydrogen storage systems with improved gravimetric density, operating at ambient temperatures and low pressures, which would enhance safety and system efficiencies compared to current storage methods. This project is important as it addresses a critical aspect of the green transition, which is developing efficient, safe, and sustainable methods for storing and using hydrogen as an energy carrier. The advancements made in this area can have a significant impact on accelerating the adoption of hydrogen a clean and renewable energy carrier.

HESSENSE aims to investigate the interaction of hydrogen with light-weight High Entropy Alloys (HEAs) and the corresponding metal hydrides (MHs). The development of MHs based on HEAs is of interest for energy storage applications, as they can be used as H2 carriers for solid state H2 storage. HESSENSE will be conducted as a joint effort of research institutes, universities and one SME in four different European countries. It will have an interdisciplinary approach where numerical approaches accompany experimental tasks; materials development will run in parallel with a techno-economic assessment of their sustainability; and advanced characterization techniques will be used to investigate the materials’ properties across different length scales. HESSENSE is expected to contribute to developing HEA-based hydrogen storage systems with improved gravimetric densities, that operate at ambient temperatures and low pressures, thereby enhancing safety. This can eventually improve system efficiencies compared to compressed and liquified hydrogen storage. When thermally integrated with a hydrogen fuel cell, HEAs can act as a heat sink during desorption. At the same time, the heat produced during hydrogen absorption can be re-utilized. Additionally, the thermodynamic data for the HEAs investigated within HESSENSE will be shared in open-source databases used by the wider metal hydride community to explore new compositions with ML methods. Finally, the RMCProfile7 software that will be used for the structural modeling of HEAs and optimized and further developed within HESSENSE is open source allowing for reusability and interoperability.