Eden – Innovative Hydrogen Storage System in Solid Material

Bruno Kessler foundation (FBK), Trento, Italy, developed a new hydrogen storage process with new materials. This is a step forward an innovative utilization of this source of energy. We are talking about the scientific European project called Eden (High Energy Density Mg-based Metal Hydrides Storage System), with a specific goal: to use hydrogen as energy source for houses and public buildings. The prototype has been showed in Trento on 24^th and 25^th of September 2015 and, in few months, it will be moved to Barcelona for the experimentation in loco.

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On October 2012 started the project. In the past few months they reached the goal to store hydrogen in a solid material Magnesium-based, which is capable to catch and keep the gas atoms on its surface. It will be not necessary anymore to stock the hydrogen under high pressure and it will be possible, as a consequence, increase the storage safety. Eden worked on a few-liters tank in which is possible to store as much hydrogen as we would need to give 24 hours energy for a normal house, both electrical and thermal. The strength of the technology is the hydrogen battery working on variable energy consumption coming from the sun and wind sources, following users demand profiles.

Luigi Crema, responsible of the research unit of Materials and Microsystems, told “the Eden technology integrates several components. One fuel cell working on renewable energy sources as sun and wind allows the generation of hydrogen from the water. A tank containing Magnesium-based material allows the hydrogen storage. Some other components complete the system in order to release the hydrogen and allowing the generation of electricity if necessary”. The prototype will be installed in Barcelona, near a public area, combined with a photovoltaic plant. The solar energy produced during the day will be stored in the Eden technology and it will be utilized during the night for the central area in Barcelona.

On September 24 has been possible to visit the laboratories of the research center at the FBK headquarters. The partners of the project are MBN Nanomaterialia SPA (Italy), Cidete Ingenieros SL (Spain), Matres SCRL (Italy), Panco GmbH (Germany), Universidad de la Laguna (Spain), EU Joint Research Centre – Institute for Energy and Transport (Netherland).