Effect of high-pressure hydrogen environment on the physical and mechanical properties of elastomers

The development of an infrastructure for the safe and reliable storage, handling and delivery of hydrogen is crucial for the expansion of hydrogen technology in the transport and industrial sector. Since many polymeric materials are directly in contact with hydrogen, it is necessary to conduct further research to study their compatibility with hydrogen. With the increasing demand in material testing in hydrogen, new test facilities are now available at BAM. As a part of the Polymers4Hydrogen project, this study presents the influence of high-pressure hydrogen environment on the physical and mechanical properties of two types of cross-linked hydrogenated acrylonitrile butadiene rubbers. Based on the CSA/ANSI standard, static exposures in hydrogen were performed up to 100 MPa at 120 °C. Characterization before and after exposure was conducted by means of density and hardness measurements, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), tensile tests, compression set, FT-IR and AFM analyses to assess effects after decompression. While the effect of high-pressure exposure is significant immediately after exposure, most of the physical and mechanical properties recover after 48 h. FT-IR, AFM, SEM and compression set results indicate, however, permanent effects.