Thermodynamic modeling and analysis of hydrogen storage systems in hydrogen refueling stations

In order to meet the hydrogen refueling demand of fuel cell vehicles and reduce the cost of HRS operation process, it is necessary to study the hydrogen refueling process of cascade hydrogen storage system of hydrogen refueling station. In this paper, a thermodynamic model of the hydrogen refueling process for fuel cell vehicles is established, and the effect of the variation of these thermodynamic parameters on the specific energy consumption and utilization rate of the hydrogen refueling process is investigated in terms of the pressure ratio and capacity of the hydrogen storage tank, which is the core of the hydrogen refueling station, consisting of multiple hydrogen storage tanks. The results show that the specific energy consumption and hydrogen utilization of the hydrogen refueling station decreases as the ratio of the nominal pressure of the medium-pressure stage to the nominal pressure of the high-pressure stage increases over the course of the pressure ratio change. In addition, the capacity variation is only slightly changed as a result of the pressure ratio variation. Therefore, the lowest ratio of specific energy consumption can be found by fixing the utilization rate and by changing the pressure ratio. For example, in this paper, if the total mass of hydrogen in the station is 600 kg and the hydrogen utilization rate is required to be not less than 12 %, the optimal pressures for each level are 50.2 MPa, 65 MPa and 86.7 MPa.