The thing is, you need to make hydrogen more dense. Right now the easiest and cheapest way to do it is to super-cool it so it liquefies. Gaseous storage of hydrogen is a non-starter as far as technology goes, it’s flammable, high pressure and will diffuse through most steels making them brittle.
Corrosive, too. An engineer friend of mine is working with a group that is developing hydrogen injection for gasoline engines. This method would inject a small amount of gaseous hydrogen into each intake cycle, boosting the "bang" and significantly increasing gas mileage as a result. They're having the same troubles, though. Difficulty in storage, the pressure issues and the effects of the hydrogen on the engine block and pistons. He says ceramics are the answer, but it sounds expensive to me.
The method in this story doesn't sound like a "break through" to me, though. 14% storage is double the previous methods, but it's still only 14% and IIRC, Russia has the world's largest reserves of titanium, which ain't cheap in it's own right.
Only true at elevated temperatures. At room temperature, the rate is so slow as to be negligible. Highr pressure hydrogen cylinders are steel (not sure which alloy, but definitely not stainless, because they rust where their paint is chipped/abraded).
Well stated.
Indeed, the real issue is that hydrogen ions are very small, so small that they easily slip into the metal lattice structure of mast materials designed for strength, used in bulk, in the design of the machines used to propel the vehicles they drive. When embedded in those structures, they act as inclusions which change the materials physical properties, including becoming dislocation generators, causing embrittlement and crack formation.
The high pressures and temperatures merely exasperate the problem, which also exists at lower temperatures and pressures.
I also haven’t seen what other emission problems might result from slight percentages of hydrogen ion and hydroxl ions being released by incomplete or secondary reactions.