The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) is a U.S. Department of Energy research and development laboratory located at the Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, South Carolina. SRNL has over 50 years of experience in developing and applying hydrogen technology, both through its national defense activities as well as through its recent activities with the DOE Hydrogen Programs. The hydrogen technical staff at SRNL comprises over 90 scientists, engineers and technologists. SRNL has ongoing R&
D initiatives in a variety of hydrogen storage areas, including metal hydrides, complex hydrides, chemical hydrides and carbon nanotubes. SRNL has over 25 years of experience in metal hydrides and solid-state hydrogen storage research, development and demonstration. As part of its defense mission at SRS, SRNL developed, designed, demonstrated and provides ongoing technical support for the largest hydrogen processing facility in the world based on the integrated use of metal hydrides for hydrogen storage, separation, and compression. The SRNL has been active in teaming with academic and industrial partners to advance hydrogen technology. A primary focus of SRNL's R&
D has been hydrogen storage using metal and complex hydrides. SRNL and its Hydrogen Technology Research Laboratory have been very successful in leveraging their defense infrastructure, capabilities and investments to help solve this country's energy problems. SRNL has participated in projects to convert public transit and utility vehicles for operation using hydrogen fuel. Two major projects include the H2Fuel Bus and an Industrial Fuel Cell Vehicle (IFCV) also known as the GATOR{trademark}. Both of these projects were funded by DOE and cost shared by industry. These are discussed further in Section 3.0, Demonstration Projects. In addition to metal hydrides technology, the SRNL Hydrogen group has done extensive R&
D in other hydrogen technologies, including membrane filters for H2 separation, doped carbon nanotubes, storage vessel design and optimization, chemical hydrides, hydrogen compressors and hydrogen production using nuclear energy. Several of these are discussed further in Section 2, SRNL Hydrogen Research and Development.