CB&I and Shell Demonstrate First Commercial-Scale Liquid Hydrogen Storage Tank Design for International Trade Applications at NASA

CB&I and a consortium including Shell International Exploration and Production, Inc. (Shell), a subsidiary of Shell plc, GenH2 and the University of Houston today announced the completion of a first-of-its-kind, affordable, large-scale liquid hydrogen (LH2) storage tank concept at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama, that will enable international import and export applications.

The project, which began in 2021 and is supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE), developed a novel non-vacuum tank design concept for large-scale (up to 100,000 cubic meters) storage of LH2 that is anticipated to provide a substantial cost advantage over conventional vacuum insulated tanks. This concept is being demonstrated through the construction, startup and testing of a small-scale LH2 demonstration tank at NASA MSFC.

The demonstration tank will significantly increase the MSFC hydrogen test facility’s LH2 storage capacity and be used to characterize the behavior of materials under cryogenic conditions, mimicking normal fill and empty cycles and testing non-vacuum insulation materials. In addition to an estimated six-month test period included in the project scope, a Space Act Agreement among the partner organizations provides for MSFC’s use of the tank over a five-year period, during which CB&I and Shell will continue to test new insulation technologies under non-vacuum conditions.

CB&I built the first LH2 sphere for NASA and NASA contractors in the 1960s, with a capacity of 170 cubic meters, and has expanded that threshold over the last sixty years by almost 30-fold to 5,000 cubic meters with a tank completed in 2022 at Kennedy Space Center for the Artemis program. CB&I has completed over 130 LH2 storage vessels since the 1960s.

The company and NASA have had a partnership of more than 60 years, with CB&I contributing to many NASA projects, including several supporting the Apollo and Gemini space missions.