Investigating a new technique to humidify hydrogen for an electrochemical compressor. That is the challenging internship assignment for Sam Putman, 3rd-year HAN Mechanical Engineering. Until February 2023, he is doing an internship at HyET Hydrogen in Arnhem, where he is working on an electrochemical compressor for hydrogen.

Sam’s supervisor is process engineer Wisse van Vliet, who explains the internship assignment: “We pressurise hydrogen from low pressure, 5 bar, to over 700 bar, so you can carry more of it, for example in a car. You can do that with a traditional compressor, but that has disadvantages because of the many moving parts. Those moving parts are difficult to keep gas-tight for hydrogen and cause a lot of maintenance.”

“This new technique from HyET requires humidifying hydrogen. Sam is now investigating whether there is a better way to do this. In fact, there are techniques that work, but they are too expensive to roll this out on a large scale.”

Source: TechGelderland
Photography: Gerard Burgers