Hydrogen highway

Shell Hydrogen has entered into a joint development project with Southampton-based Ilika Technologies to discover the optimum material that is suitable for the solid-state storage of hydrogen.

One of the key barriers to the adoption of hydrogen as a fuel is finding safe and economical solutions for onboard and stationary storage. While cryogenic storage and the use of compressed gas cylinders have been used in pilot projects, a safer and more efficient method could potentially use solid-state storage.

In such a solid-state storage system, metal hydrides would be used to store and then release the hydrogen. Ilika Technologies, a privately held UK company established in 2004, plans to apply its high-throughput, combinatorial R&D techniques to discover which hydrides would be best suited to the storage process.

'Our collaboration model has proven successful with other major customers and we fully expect a successful technical and commercial outcome to this project,' said.Jack Boyer, Ilika’s Chairman.