Investigating a resin’s compatibility with hydrogen vessel manufacturing

Hydrogen can store and carry different types of renewable energy, but it must be stored as either a high-pressure gas or cryogenic liquid. While composite pressure vessels — especially those made of carbon fiber and a resin system — meet these demanding requirements, the manufacturing adaptability of different resin systems remain unexplored.

De Piano et al. used experiment and modeling to investigate the compatibility of epoxy resin systems they developed with standard composite pressure vessel manufacturing methods.

The resin’s suitability is closely linked to its curing kinetics and viscosity behavior during processing. The authors used experimental measurements to build a modeling framework that describes the curing and viscosity behavior of resin for different formulations with expanded graphite as a nanofiller. This framework could be used to optimize processing conditions to produce high-performance nanofilled epoxy resin systems.

“Our work helps bridge the gap between material design and manufacturability by providing a predictive tool for process optimization,” said author Giorgia De Piano. “For advanced hydrogen storage systems, achieving optimal performance is not only a matter of material selection, but also of understanding and controlling the manufacturing process.”

The authors found that both the formulation and the addition of nanofillers strongly affect curing, viscosity, and gelation behavior, allowing manufacturers to reduce the risk of defects such as voids, incomplete impregnation, and premature curing.

“Future work will focus on the manufacturing and characterization of real composite pressure vessels to validate the approach at a larger scale and further assess the final performance for hydrogen storage applications,” De Piano said.

Source: “Cure- and temperature-dependent rheology of a high-performance resin system for hydrogen pressure vessels,” by Giorgia De Piano, Francesca Aliberti, Raffaele Longo, Liberata Guadagno, and Roberto Pantani, Journal of Rheology (2026). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1122/8.0001199 .