Drop-in Hydrogen Fueling (2014)

Authors: Alex Chandel, Eric Jiang, Minwook Kim, Todor Kukushliev, William Lassman (ChE 352 in Winter 2014)

Steward: David Chen, Fengqi You

Date Presented: Winter 2014

Executive Summary

With ongoing energy crisis, constant efforts are made to reach a sustainable energy. Major attention nowadays has been to shift the heavy demand of petroleum fuel to natural gas. Big effort has been made to make such a shift into a reality by making noticeable improvements in the fuel cell vehicle. To facilitate the shift, proper and reliable fueling station for fuel cell vehicle is essential.

The report proposes a design for a portable hydrogen station that can maximize the revenue and therefore facilitate a hydrogen fuel market. The stations can be installed in places where the demand is saturated. Also, when the demand falls low, the portable station can be transferred to different place where the hydrogen demand is higher. The fueling module consists of a compressor, a storage vessel, a dispensing module, and necessary valving systems. The design is kept as minimalistic to minimize the capital cost yet enhance the portability. The site chosen was 2580 S Schaefer Highway in Detroit, Michigan. The site has commodious space of 280x100 ft. and necessary utilities and hookups available to support the designed station along with the car wash and/or oil change center. Despite the portability, the infrastructure will accommodate the state-of-the-art fueling dispensing features.

Economic analysis was made without accounting for the tax and restructuring cost. The initial cost of the actuating the design will cost $189,000 in initial capital cost. The sales revenue is estimated to be around $324,000; the annual cost amounts to be $296,355 per year. The income of a single station is $27,645 which will set the payback period to be 8 years.

Introduction

Around the turn of the 21st century, engineering and design were fundamentally changed with the advent of energy and environmental sustainability. With energy prices and harsher standards set by regulating organizations, the modern engineer emphasizes carbon footprint and sustainable design in developing new products and systems. One key technology that is now known to be unsustainable is petroleum, especially as used for automobile fuels. The rising cost of gasoline has motivated the investigation of alternative technologies, such as hydrogen, to be used to power automobiles.

The objective of this study was to design a mobile hydrogen refueling module for high-pressure hydrogen vehicles. The design was required to fulfill the following criteria:

• Dispense 5kg H2 gas in under five minutes
• Refuel vehicles up to 70 MPa
• Support two simultaneous refueling
• Support a 100kg/day demand, plus an additional 48 hours in the event of upstream equipment failure
• Mobile: able to disassemble and reassemble the entire process in under 7 days
• Fit inside a standard ISO container
• Capital investment that is a fraction of 2-4 million USD