TECHNOLOGY

THERMO-CHEMICAL HYDROGEN COMPRESSION

One of the main obstacles to the deployment of hydrogen as an energy carrier is its logistics, which generally requires a compression stage. Indeed, existing compressors use mechanical effects. They are often expensive, noisy, and involve high operating costs (maintenance and energy). In addition, their availability is still low, requiring significant investments in safety and redundancy to ensure sufficient quality of service.

EIFHYTEC solves the constraints of hydrogen compression through a technological breakthrough: thermochemical compression.

In EIFHYTEC compressors, hydrogen is first absorbed at low pressure into a metal alloy to form a solid compound: the metal hydride. In a second step, the hydrogen is released (desorbed) at a higher pressure by the addition of heat, thus generating a compression effect.

This solution does not use any moving parts and therefore eliminates all the constraints associated with mechanical compression: reduced investment and maintenance costs, no noise pollution, no leaks, no wear and tear on components. Finally, if the customer has a source of waste heat, energy consumption is greatly reduced compared to a mechanical compressor.

EIFHYTEC’s solutions are available for a wide range of uses, both for large-scale and small-scale applications.