Articles & Issues
- Language
- English
- Conflict of Interest
- In relation to this article, we declare that there is no conflict of interest.
- Publication history
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Received September 2, 2024
Accepted November 23, 2024
Available online February 25, 2025
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This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/3.0) which permits
unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
All issues
System Design and Economic Evaluation of a Liquid Hydrogen Superstation
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11814-024-00351-7
Abstract
Liquid hydrogen (LH 2 )-based hydrogen refueling stations (HRSs) are promising for high-capacity refueling, given the high
density of LH 2 , which facilitates large-scale transportation and storage. However, in LH 2 HRSs, the cryogenic cold energy
of LH 2 is wasted during the vaporization process required to refuel hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles. To overcome this issue,
this study proposes a novel LH 2 -based hydrogen superstation (HSS) that recovers the otherwise wasted cold energy to generate
electricity for the station, with any excess electricity used to charge electric vehicles. To explore the most cost-eff ective
confi guration for cold energy recovery in the HSS, two power generation cycles were designed: one incorporating a Brayton
cycle followed by a Rankine cycle (BC-RC), and another using two Rankine cycles in series (RC-RC). Combining the BC-RC
and RC-RC confi gurations, this two-stage design is adopted to effi ciently recover cold energy across a broad temperature
range during the vaporization process. The HSS using the BC-RC confi guration achieves 53% more cold energy recovery,
generates 19% more power, and experiences 8% less exergy waste compared to the HSS with the RC-RC setup. However,
in smaller-scale cold energy recovery systems applied to HSS, the cost savings from using pumps instead of compressors
outweigh the additional power generation benefi ts of the Brayton cycle. Consequently, the HSS with the RC-RC confi guration
demonstrates the highest economic feasibility, with a 2% higher net present value.

