Technology Outline (Process Description)

The study focuses on optimizing the thermal-static performance of helically coiled metal hydride reactors, which employs coupled RSM-Computational modeling-Desirability function methodology to investigate the correlation of structural geometric parameters on responses and identify the best novel helical design. The current study is the first of its kind that combinatorically assessed the gravimetric density (weight ratio), the efficacy of the heat exchanger (thermal power), and H2 absorption time: by using a quadratic regression technique followed by computational modeling and then multi-response desirability optimization. The optimal base case and finned reactor reached complete saturation in 550 s and 460s, respectively, when maintained at 298 K, 10 lpm, and 5 bar supply pressure, with the latter contributing to about 16.36% saving in absorption time despite 5.66% drop in weight ratio. The vivid comparison between the optimized finned helical reactor and those described in the literature proved the superiority of the designed novel reactor and substantiated the use of helical tubes for better weight ratio and shorter absorption time.