HyCARE stimulates the curiosity of the public with regards to the storage of hydrogen, in particul through the metal hydrides.

On Monday 23 May 2023, not one.. but three articles were published with regards to our Project!

“Idrogeno per stoccare energia rinnovabile: il progetto europeo HyCARE” is the title of the article published by the HUB Green&Blue on the Italian newspapers that are part of this editorial project: La Repubblica, La Stampa and Secolo XIX.

The article starts with the interview of Marcello Baricco, Professor at the University of Turin and Coordinator of the project HyCARE, who explains the project, the technology and the importance of the hydrogen storage.

Green&Blue is a multi-channel content system dedicated to sustainability and the environment. An editorial project with a digital focus, available on various platforms, accessible on all GEDI Group newspapers. Green and blue are the colors of the environment that meets science and the economy, which unite the young generations concerned about the future of the planet with companies that carry out research and propose solutions.

Read the article on La Repubblica

Last April 21^st, 2023, the final event of HyCARE Project took place in Paris with an exhibition entitled “The HyCARE system. Opportunities and challenges of the energy storage sector”. The show hosted by ENGIE Lab Crigen in cooperation with CNRS aimed to show the main results of activities carried out during the HyCARE Project, supported by the Clean Hydrogen Partnership, and coordinated by the University of Turin.

The day started with the presentation of the project activities, outlining the process for testing and tailoring the hydrogen carrier as well as those related to the production and processing. Heat management was also a fundamental topic, together with the description of the design and building of the tank, the system integration, its commissioning, and validation. Finally, the techno-economic analysis was explained together with a short overview of exploitation and dissemination activities implemented.

Following the Partners’ presentations, HyCARE hosted other three EU projects COSMHYC, SHERLOHCK and HyPSTER on hydrogen storage topic that presented their activities and shared their own experience.

Finally a Stakeholder Roundtable was moderated by HyCARE Coordinator, Marcello Baricco, with Patricia De Rango – Member of Task 40 of Hydrogen Technology Collaboration Programme (Hydrogen TCP) within the International Energy Agency, Olivier Joubert – Director of the French Federation of Hydrogen Energy FRH2, Abdelilah Slaoui – Director of the CNRS Task Force on Energy and co-director of the PEPRH2, Pierre Roy, Director of European Strategic Collaborative Program, Enterprise relationships Directorate at CNRS. The discussion focused on the big challenges of hydrogen storage in the future.

The event wrapped up with the visit to the demonstrator guided by Jose M. Bellosta von Colbe – expert on metal hydrides from Hereon, who explained the functioning and components in the container, followed by the visit to the laboratories of ENGIE Lab CRIGEN guided by Reda Bellahcene and Olivier Lefranc, from ENGIE.

“It has been a great challenge” – says prof. Marcello Baricco, of the University of Turin and project coordinator – “but we are now happy to demonstrate the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier. The theoretical studies on metal hydrides, performed in last years in European laboratories, find now a real application at a large scale. The combination of Metal Hydrides with Phase Change Materials for the thermal management of a hydrogen storage system was claimed since a while, but now it is a realty. We really thank the Clean Hydrogen Partnership for the financial support to the project. All partners have worked together with professionalism and enthusiasm, allowing to reach the final goal of the HyCARE project.”

Download the complete press release.

Credits: Franck DUNOUAU

The UNITA Universitas Montium is an alliance of six universities from five countries (France, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Spain). It envisages promoting the socio economic development of their rural and cross-border mountain areas.

The University of Turin participates in the H2020 Project “Research for UNITA (RE-UNITA)“, which will focus on the aim of the alliance, so it becomes a major player in the creation of the new European Research Area. One of the core research subjects of the project is Renewable energies.

In the newsletter No. 11 of the Re-UNITA, the HyCARE project is mentioned.

HyCARE project coordinator Marcello Baricco participated to the 2nd FRH2 meeting organized by CNRS in Aussois (France). The meeting gathered more than 150 participants with more than a hundred oral presentations by young doctoral students, internationally recognized researchers and industrialists. This unique national event made it possible to take stock of current and future research on hydrogen storage devices, on all types of fuel cells, electrolysers, as well as on associated systems.

Baricco presented the “hydrogen cycle” and stressed the key role of storage to support the uptake of renewable energy sources. The HyCARE storage system was presented as an innovative technology for green hydrogen storage, allowing seasonal storage to support the wider use of renewables.

Download here the programme of the meeting (in French).

Congratulations to the first HyCARE’s PhD awarded by the chemistry Department of the University of Turin to Dr. Jussara Barale. Under the supervision of Prf. Marcello Baricco, Dr. Barale performed research on hydrogen storage and compression systems based on metal hydride. The work of Dr. Barale was fundamental to understand the properties of metal hydrides in combination to phase changing materials for hydrogen storage.

HyCARE’s researcher F.Cuevas hold a webinar in the Master “Energías y Combustibles para el Futuro” of the Autonoma University of Madrid (Spain) on the research activities performed in the framework of HyCARE. Twelve students were actively engaged in the presentation. The webinar presented the activities and results including alloy design, tuning to thermodynamic operational conditions, activation and kinetic issues, as well as cycling stability, resistance to impurities and limited use of raw critical materials.

Download the pdf to know more about the content of the presentation!

Energy Materials for Innovation – EM4I

4^th EERA workshop & 1^st AMPEA-E3S joint workshop on “Sustainability Assessment of materials and technologies for a clean energy transition”

Since the summer of 2021, the EERA network is hosting a workshop series on “Energy Materials for Innovation (EM4I)”. The series, consisting in six workshops, covers the integral stages of materials research, from discovery to scale-up productions, device development, industrial integration and sustainability, as well as cross-cutting technologies supporting these actions.

The fourth of the series focuses on “Sustainability assessment of materials and technologies for a clean energy transition”. The workshop, with the participation of AMPEA-E3S researchers, aimed to develop mutual understanding of societal needs and technological advances and to foster new collaborations necessary for achieving the Clean Energy Transition.

The contribution presented by HyCARE’s researcher Mattia Costamagna at the workshop focused on case studies in which the Life Cycle Assessment methodology was used to evaluate the environmental burdens associated with the use of Metal Hydride technology. In fact, this technology represents an interesting and promising solution that can be used for the compression and storage of hydrogen.

The HyCARE article on ” Substitutional effects in TiFe for hydrogen storage: a comprehensive review” has been quoted ad the most read article in Materials Advances. Our HyCARE researchers are committed to open science and are doing their best to share the research result with all the scientific community. Our ambition is to contribute in growing research on metal alloys as a sustainable option for hydrogen storage.

Download the article at this link.

See the full collection of Material Advances at rsc.li/materials-advances

HyCARE’s researcher Erika De Matteis presented her research on “TiFe- substituted intermetallic for large-scale stationary hydrogen storage at the international conference “New Times – New Trends in Materials Science and Engineering 1st International Virtual Conference“. This virtual meeting aimed at providing a forum on new trends on materials science and engineering from the Italian community and beyond. The scope was to gather engineers, physicists, chemists and materials scientists working on innovative materials and their applications.

Dr. De Matteis has presented her HyCARE’s research activities on the optimal alloy composition for the HyCARE system. Her presentation on “Fundamental hydrogen storage properties of TiFe-alloy with partial substitution of Fe by Ti and Mn” provided an overview of the main results of the experimental activities conducted in collaboration with CNRS and HEREON.

For more information, please visit the Hydrogen Technologies Congress website at this link.