ANG STORAGE AS A TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTION FOR THE "CHICKEN-AND-EGG" PROBLEM OF NGV REFUELING INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT

The storage and transmission of natural gas (NG) without using pipelines poses known challenges. Due to a growing demand for non-pipeline uses of NG, the practical problems it raises have to be solved in the near future. Especially since motor vehicles one of the applications of NG become the biggest liquid fuel consumer in developed countries. Due to techno-economical and ecological factors, natural gas will remain the most important existing alternative to oil-based motor fuels in the foreseeable future. Two methods are currently commercially applied for natural gas storage: either under extremely high pressure of 200-250 bars in gaseous form (CNG) or at a very low temperature (minus 161.5 degrees C) in liquefied form (LNG). CNG is applied mainly for Natural Gas Vehicles when LNG is applied mainly in big scale gas marine transportation. The massive implementation of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vehicles in most markets is restrained by the need of grandiose refueling infrastructure and inconvenience and additional costs of onboard CNG tanks. Adsorbed Natural Gas (ANG) technology stores natural gas in special micro-porous material placed inside the vessel. This material acts as a sponge to adsorb natural gas. ANG technology enables to store similar gas quantities as CNG under much lower pressure (40-50 bars) and decrease dramatically filling station capital and operation costs as well as reduces NG end-user cost. In addition this method opens new possibilities for non-cylindrical tanks application. Alternatively ANG in combination with higher pressure enables to increase the driving range of NGV or to reduce the size of NGV tank. Till now commercialization of ANG method didn’t succeed due to unsolved technological problems. According to our evaluation AngStore project of MoreGasTech S.A.S. proposes the first commercially valuable ANG solution for vehicle. Angstore develops two types of products: Low-pressure ANG tanks (40-65 bars) and Highpressure ANG tanks (100-200 bars). Low-pressure ANG tanks providing cost-performance characteristics similar to CNG cut to 1/2 – 1/3 the refueling infrastructures capital and operation costs. This can enable much faster and efficient development of NGV infrastructure deployment in countries/regions without well-developed CNG stations network. High-pressure ANG tanks enable 50% increase of NGV driving range in comparison with CNG. Otherwise they can reduce tank volume. This makes transition to gas attractive for some vehicle user groups including first of all those with high driving ranges or strict on-board space limitations.