Australian Mines is working with the Indian Amrita Centre for Research and Development to create a hydrogen storage system that can be utilized for mining trucks and light-duty vehicles.
The Queensland Sconi will generate the “world’s most sustainable, Carbon Neutral certified nickel and cobalt,” according to Australian Mines.
According to the reports, scandium-magnesium alloys were being investigated as a high-performance substitute for the upcoming nickel metal hydride batteries four years ago.
It is now said that solid state hydrogen metal hydride technology is being used, as opposed to the more conventional compression or liquefaction. Given that hydrogen has a liquid point of -252 degrees, whereas natural gas has a liquid point of -150 degrees, the latter has never been accomplished at scale.
The US government views hydrogen storage on or within solids as a crucial step toward a larger hydrogen economy and application in cars.
The US Department of Energy said the most recent results were welcome even if it has not yet reached the stage they recommend. Australian Mines highlighted that the hydrogen it used was in its ordinary gaseous condition and that it produced its metal hydride using a procedure that it believes can be scaled up. The benchmark for the DOE is a far more challenging 60C and just 5–12 bar of pressure.
It put its novel technology to the test over the course of four runs at 350C, reporting that on the second and best run, it absorbed 5 wt% of hydrogen in just under 10 minutes and released the same in just 3.7%, a process that takes hours to complete using a competing technology at much higher temperatures.
