Message from Project Leader
To solve the energy and environmental issues that human being are facing and to keep economic growth all over the world, technical development is accepted as one of the most realistic ways to reach. Among technologies, fuel cell and hydrogen attract enormous attention because they are key technologies to solve these issues simultaneously.
Hydrogen is a secondary energy (energy carrier) that can be generated from various primary energies (energy resources). In addition, hydrogen is only a fuel that can be converted from / to electricity. Therefore, hydrogen is expected to be used by mid-21st century as one of the major secondary energies same as electricity. Hydrogen gas at room temperature and 1 bar has 1 / 3000 of volume energy density of gasoline. To develop technologies to store and transport hydrogen compactly, effectively and safely is a real key issue to realize the hydrogen economy. Hydrogen storage materials absorb hydrogen more dense than liquid hydrogen under moderate pressure and temperature. The concept of hydrogen storage materials was shown late 1960fs and R & D started from 1970fs. They are used for the electrode of Ni-hydrogen batteries that are applied to hybrid vehicles at present. However, breakthroughs in material development are needed for the practical applications, especially on board hydrogen storage.
Japanese government established a policy of gback to the basich on R & D of fuel cell and hydrogen technologies because fundamental research is indispensable to realize significant breakthroughs those lead the materials to the real applications. Advanced Fundamental Research on Hydrogen Storage Materials (HYDROSTAR) is established to study hydrogen storage materials from fundamental point of views using large scale facilities as SPring-8 (synchrotron radiation) and J-PARC (neutron) and inviting modeling scientists to meet experimental scientists of the field in order to realize significantly high performance materials for on board hydrogen storage with collaboration to the industries.
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (AIST)
AKIBA, Etsuo