Filling ANY high pressure compressed gas cylinder is about the same, procedurally. It is just the inconvenience of using high pressure gas cylinders in general that most automotive people object to. Aside from the obvious risks of fuel line rupture and fire, there is the overall bulk and weight of the tanks to take into consideration---all shortcomings that must be overcome(reformers,etc.) before the fuel cell will be a viable alternative to the IC engine.
I, personally, don't see the use of fuel cells in our immidiate future for general automotive use.
Hy,
At this time exist big projects (BMW, MERCEDES) in this aim. A practical mode to stock Hydrogen is in honeycomb tanks, but this honeycomb is made from special foams with high density.An other problem is what happened with the tank in crash case.From media information I heared that MERCEDES A CLASS with Hydrogen fuel cells is most advanced and sure project.
Sorry for my poor english
The ultimate goal of using high pressure H2 as a source for fuel cell vehicles is to make it similar to refilling CNG vehicles. The pressures are similar (around 250 bar) and storage and compression devices are often the same as CNG.
One project I am involved with uses CNG cylinders and piping as the fuel storage medium for a fuel cell.
Another storage method is using a low pressure heat activated iron metal matrix similar to rust to store large quantities of H@ at low pressure (around 50 bar).
Liquid H2 will probably not be an option since the cryogen storage is VERY expensive and limited in storage time.
Since there are no production H2 vehicles, the methodology of filling connections standards has not been finalized.
Franz
