Forget the heavy metal and expansive storage and transportation of hydrogen. Scientists are coming up with conformable polymeric-foam microstructures for on-board storage of hydrogen.
The new ‘Hydrostatic Pressure Retainment Microstructure’ stores the gas in small bubbles of a foam matrix. This leads to the formation of a series of small, spherical pressure vessels with the resulting stress in the material between the bubbles is in a hydrostatic state of tri-axial tension.
The new ‘Hydrostatic Pressure Retainment Microstructure’ approach has 3 main advantages:
* Conformability: The conformable foam allows the tank to fit the frame
* Safety: In the case of an accident, only the gas contained in the adjacent cells to the fracture location would dispel at once.
* Weight Savings: In theory, because the matrix material is in a state of hydrostatic tension, the material is being utilized 100% in all 3 Cartesian directions, thus requiring less material.
