Background
Selected Design
Our design recommendation for this project is to use seamless steel tanks for the H2 gas buffer system. The main 
factors that we based this decision on was the fact that these tanks are readily available on the market compared to the other options. This is also the most cost efficient option as each tank would cost $260, so our design using four tanks would come out to about $1040 for the tanks. This is extremely cheap compared to our other options that could cost up to $2500 for a single tank.
Updated Design
We decided to slightly modify our design from a four tank system to a six tanks system. The new design comes with a storage rack set up that address the issue of covering tank manifolds for transportation. To meet DOT standards while in transportation tanks manifolds must covered and protected during transportation. Our new six tanks design comes with a storage rack that has a built in protection cover for the manifolds. This is a much greater design because we wont have to worry with the issue of unhooking the connections to the tanks and cover the manifolds each to a transportation is going to take place.
Seamless Steel Tanks: $260 x 4 = $1040
- Quoted by Oxarc at $260 per tank at 195 cubic feet STP
Tank Frame Materials: $350
- Bosch tubing and related hardware
Manpower to Assemble: $10/hr*2hr=$20
- Assembly of tanks and required frames
Total cost for 5 years: $1040+$350+$20 = $1410
Salvage Value after 5 years: $500
Paradigms
Steel Tanks:
Our first idea was to use seamless steel tanks as our buffer system to store the extra H2 gas. We chose this as an option because they are common and easy to find on the market. This is also one of the more cost efficient options that we came up with as it is around $300 per tank at 195 cubic feet.
Composite Tanks: 
Another idea we came up with was to use composite tanks to store the H2. These tanks would be aluminum tanks that would be have an outer lining of carbon fiber. These aluminum would prevent gaseous H2 from leaking out of the tank while the carbon fiber reinforcement would add strength and allow the tanks to withstand the high pressure scenario.
Metal Hydrides:
The last idea we came up with was to use metal hydride tanks. These are tanks that can absorb H2 in its gas form.
The tanks would then have to be heated up to release the gas once absorbed. These tanks would allow for much greater storage with smaller sized tanks.
Future
The installation of the buffer storage is mostly complete, but there are a few things that will need to be addressed before it’s finished.
- An inlet line needs to be added through the container
- A regulator and outlet line is needed to plumb the buffer storage tanks in with the rest of the system.