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We consider the main approaches and designs of using metal hydrides in supply systems of vacuum power plants with hydrogen isotopes as a working medium. By analyzing the results of investigations and developments in this field, we show that the most promising method is connected with the creation of multifunctional metal-hydride elements, which are a part of the structural units of the working zone of a vacuum chamber (e.g., the electrodes of a device supporting plasma) and are made of hydride-forming materials that are reversible absorbers of low-pressure hydrogen. In this case, in addition to the complex solution of auxiliary problems of compact storage, purification, and programmed bleeding-in of hydrogen isotopes into the vacuum chamber of a power plant, efficient pumping-out and improved operation of the plant as a whole can be ensured in certain cases.

The authors review information available from Russian and international publications (including their own experimental results) wherein an effect of forming an excited hydrogen species in systems with hydride-forming materials, as well as some evidence of the effect in physical-chemical processes, are considered. Some possibilities of using the effect in vacuum physical-energy units and electrochemical energy conversion systems are shown. A connection of the said effect with a phenomenon of “cold fusion” is noted and illustrated with the “accelerating” model of the phenomenon as the most clear.

The institute for Problems in Machinery of the National Academy of Sciences of the Ukraine has developed an experimental batch of the single-stage metal hydride thermosorption compressors (TSCs) with different gas deliveries: TSC-70, TSC-80, TSC-150 and TSC-300. These have delivery pressure from 7.0 to 30.0 MPa at the initial pressure of 0.3–1.0 MPa. These devices can work in continuous mode or in periodic mode. They are characterized with the original design properties, caused by severe barometric working conditions. The technical parameters of these compressors as well as the results of their long-term operation in the different energy-technological systems are presented in the report. The prospective fields of their application are shown.

Results are presented on phase equilibria and hydrogen uptake characteristics for alloys in the Zr-V-Fe system. Effects have been determined from combining these alloys with scandium, lanthanum, and aluminum oxide. The hydrogenation uptake kinetics can be improved if the alloy contains Zr3V3O, and the hydrogen capacity is increased if lanthanum or scandium is added. The thermal decomposition conditions for the hydrogenated alloys have been examined.

Simulation of phase transitions in IMC-hydrogen systems on the basis of modified scheme of perturbation theory provides correct description of main characteristics of phase diagrams in the wide region of pressures of hydrogen isotopes (6 order and higher). The obtained data about thermodynamic parameters of α—β transition allows to describe inversion of isotopic effect in LaNi5-H2(D2) system. Data on solubility of hydrogen isotopes in LaNi5 at pressures up to 500 atm are obtainsed; data on parameters of the critical point of α—β equilibriums (experimental data for which are absent) are also obtained. Proposed calculation scheme does not use fitting parameters or empirical correlations and leans upon atomic characteristics of the hydrogen subsystem and metallic matrix which are physically meaningful.