Data for A novel composite insulation system of hollow glass microspheres and multilayer insulation with self-evaporating vapor cooled shield for liquid hydrogen storage and A high-efficiency liquid hydrogen storage system cooled by a fuel-cell-driven refrigerator for hydrogen combustion heat recovery

Besides, the effects of fuel cell efficiency, refrigerator efficiency, cold shield position, storage pressure, boundary temperature, and system vacuum on the insulation performance were also analyzed.Hydrogen energy has broad application prospects due to its properties, including rich sources, high utilization as well as large calorific value (three times that of gasoline). The efficient storage method of hydrogen energy is a major concern in its practical application.

Compared with other hydrogen storage methods such as gaseous storage and solid material storage, liquid hydrogen (LH2) storage has the advantages of high energy storage density and low storage pressure. However, the temperature of LH2(20.32K@0.1MPa) is significantly lower than room temperature (300 K), and heat leakage causes it to evaporate continuously. Thus efficient thermal insulation technology is a key to LH2 storage.

In this paper, based on the traditional multilayer thermal insulation (MLI), a novel insulation system combining the hollow glass microspheres (HGMs) that not sensitive to vacuum with the self-evaporating vapor cooled shield (VCS) that can recover hydrogen cold-energy was introduced and analyzed. Based on the layer-by-layer method, a thermodynamic calculation model was established, and related experimental verification was completed.

The results show that the heat leakage of the novel insulation system is decreased by 45.31% under high vacuum (10-3 Pa) and 81.28% under low vacuum (1 Pa) compared with the traditional MLI, which shows that the novel thermal insulation system can maintain excellent thermal insulation performance in a wide range of vacuum. The influences of the VCS position, LH2 storage pressure, hot boundary temperature, and vacuum on the thermal insulation performance of the composite thermal insulation system have also been analyzed.