Project aims for dual-use hydrogen energy storage

The University said the technology will target commercial food operations where refrigeration can be responsible for 30-60 per cent of electricity usage and 1.2 per cent of the UK’s total CO₂ emissions.

In addition to factories and processing plants, the UK food industry also operates a network of 84,000 refrigerated heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) to transport perishable goods. Nearly a quarter of the power output of refrigerated trucks used across the network is required to meet refrigeration demand, resulting in significant CO₂ emissions.

High time for heavy duty hydrogen trucks

The technology has the potential to reduce the UK food cold chain’s dependency on imported energy and accelerate the large-scale roll out of hydrogen fuel cells for HGVs, which could lead to an increase in operating efficiency with a corresponding reduction in commercial operating costs.

In a statement, project lead, Dr Sanliang Ling from the Advanced Materials Research Group said: “We aim to develop integrated hydrogen storage technologies that will simultaneously provide the controlled release of hydrogen to service fuel cell power needs and direct cooling.