Absorption of hydrogen gas inside the metal hydride (MH)-based hydrogen storage system generates significant amount of heat. This heat must be removed rapidly to improve the performance of the system which can be accomplished by embedding a heat exchanger inside the MH bed. In this article, a tubular shape MH system, equipped with a heat exchanger consisting of copper tube and pin fin is presented. A detailed 3D mathematical model is developed using COMSOL Multiphysics 4.3b for the numerical study of absorption and desorption processes inside the storage system. Impact of various operating and geometric parameters on the charging time of the storage system has been examined. It is observed that these geometric and operating parameters influence the charging time of the storage system. In the last, the impact of heat exchanger material on the performance of the storage system is explored. It is found that aluminum made heat exchanger is the best for the storage systems. The absorption process is accomplished in 1152 s at the operating parameters of 15 bar, 298 K, and 6.75 lit/min. This numerical work suggests that the efficient design of storage system is very important for rapid absorption and desorption of hydrogen.
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