Today, we have the means to produce clean, decarbonated hydrogen thanks to the excess of renewable energies.
Moreover, some industrial companies coproduce hydrogen, resulting from their manufacturing process. This hydrogen, also called fatal hydrogen is often not used to its value. These companies use only a tiny part of hydrogen internally.
One way to value this hydrogen is to use it for mobility, and in particular to become the future fuel for fuel cell electric vehicles.
There are different ways to design an hydrogen station.
In some situations, the hydrogen distribution station includes the hydrogen chain (production and compression of hydrogen, storage and distribution at the same site). All of its elements are therefore one and the same large room with an expensive cost of installation and the difficulty of evolution of the station.
There is, however, another model of hydrogen stations, a similar model to gas stations.
Hydrogen can be produced and compressed in a first place then transported at high pressure in several places of distribution.
It is with this mind that MAHYTEC develops a high pressure tank for the transport of compressed hydrogen. These tanks assembled in frames can then transport the hydrogen from the place of production to the place of distribution. The frame is then deposited on the place of distribution where the tanks are cascaded.
MAHYTEC coordinates the VHYCTOR project, a regional project whose aim is to valorize hydrogen co-produced massively and then distribute it in stations. The aim is to offer a new hydrogen distribution solution for mobility. The hydrogen is stored at high pressure in hydrogen storage tanks designed and adapted to facilitate transport. The project plans is to optimize the distribution mode by centralizing the compression, which would reduce the costs of setting up a station with the possibility of changing it according to each request, thus facilitating its deployment.
Recent years have been marked by the emergence of electric vehicles. However, the limits in terms of autonomy were quickly observed. The on-board hydrogen makes it possible to overcome this problem of autonomy. Today hydrogen electric vehicles allow a range of about 500 kilometers with an on-board hydrogen mass of 5 kg.
In most situations, hydrogen on board vehicles is compressed at pressures of 350bar for high mobility (buses, trucks, boats, shuttles, etc.) or 700bar for light vehicles.
For some applications, hydrogen can also be integrated at low pressure, especially around systems equipped with hydride hydrogen tanks. This is what had been achieved in particular in the Mobypost project.
MAHYTEC works to supply systems for vehicles (in the broad sense) with hydrogen. We strongly believe in the development of H2 mobility and have acquired a strong know-how for the fuel cell vehicle H2 interface.