Hydrogen

International Awareness Forum on Environment, Energy and

Public Health: From Mexico to the Americas and with
Participation of Different Regions of the World

Paul Brewer
11 October 2018
Santiago de Querétaro
UK’s hydrogen economy 2030

A report by UK H2Mobility (2013)

1.6 million fuel cell vehicles on 1,100 hydrogen refuelling 254,000 tonnes of hydrogen
the road in the UK stations in operation produced a year
Hydrogen refuelling station implementation
in 2018

3
Four Metrology Challenges for the
Hydrogen Industry

4
Challenge 1 – Flow Metering

Refuelling
stations cannot
cost their
customers with
required
accuracies

Flow meters in
the refuelling
station must be
accurate to 1%
(OIML R 139-1)
Unknown mass
Hydrogen supplied can vary up to of hydrogen is
700 bar in pressure and between - lost during
40 to 85oC during refuelling venting
Challenge 2 – Quality Assurance

Usually platinum – can degrade in the

presence of impurities (such as ISO 14687-2:2015 – Quality requirements for
hydrogen sulphide or carbon
monoxide) hydrogen fuel cell vehicles
Reactive gases
•Water (5 µmol/mol)
•Oxygen (5 µmol/mol)
•Carbon dioxide (2 µmol/mol)
•Total hydrocarbon compounds (2 µmol/mol)
•Formic acid (0.2 µmol/mol)
•Carbon monoxide (0.2 µmol/mol)
•Ammonia (0.1 µmol/mol)
•Total halogenated compounds (0.05 µmol/mol)
•Formaldehyde (0.01 µmol/mol)
•Total sulphur compounds (0.004 µmol/mol)

Inert gases
•Helium (300 µmol/mol)
Gas analysis methods Gas reference materials •Nitrogen (100 µmol/mol)
•Argon (100 µmol/mol)
Non-gases
•Particulates (1 mg/kg)
Challenge 3 - Quality Control

ISO 19880-8 recommends adding quality control measures in

order to:
• Continuously monitor key impurities
• Monitor levels of reactive components that could degrade
the fuel cell
• Switch off pump as soon as any impurities are detected

Quantum cascade analyser by

ProCeas by AP2E
Cascade Technologies

Online analysers are available but have not been tested for hydrogen quality control
Challenge 4 - Sampling

Hydrogen sample

Hydrogen refuelling station Hydrogen purity laboratory

There are no official guidelines for sampling hydrogen and therefore stations may be
using:
• Inaccurate techniques for sampling (e.g. contamination issues)
• Inappropriate sampling devices (e.g. stainless steel opposed to Silconert® 2000)
• Incorrect sampling vessels/cylinders
Hydrogen Quality Assurance

Reactive gases
•Water (5 µmol/mol)
•Oxygen (5 µmol/mol)
•Carbon dioxide (2 µmol/mol)
•Total hydrocarbon compounds (2 µmol/mol)
•Formic acid (0.2 µmol/mol)
•Carbon monoxide (0.2 µmol/mol)
•Ammonia (0.1 µmol/mol)
•Total halogenated compounds (0.05 µmol/mol)
•Formaldehyde (0.01 µmol/mol)
•Total sulphur compounds (0.004 µmol/mol)

Inert gases
•Helium (300 µmol/mol)
•Nitrogen (100 µmol/mol)
Develop new methods for •Argon (100 µmol/mol)
analysing low level reactive
impurities Non-gases
•Particulates (1 mg/kg)

Objective – Further develop state-of-the-art in hydrogen purity methods for low level impurities
Hydrogen Quality Assurance

Hydrogen sample Impurity

Measure
Key points:
krypton - Capital costs ~€50k
- Used with routine analysers
yKr,a such as GC-MS
- Further testing required to
improve membranes
Krypton

Enrichment
Pure tracer gas (krypton) Enriched CEF
hydrogen
mixture

Measure
krypton

yKr,b
Measure
impurities

Objective – Enable hydrogen impurity enrichment device to work with sulphur compounds
NPL Capability

Quartz crystal Gas chromatography with thermal

cavity ringdown microbalance
spectroscopy conductivity detector

Water Helium
UV-visible spectroscopy
Ammonia
Thermo-desorption - Gas chromatography
with mass spectrometer detector

Organo-halogenated compounds
(excluding HCl and Cl2) Formaldehyde
Carbon dioxide
Hydrocarbons
Carbon monoxide
HCl Methane
Gas chromatography with
Sulphur methaniser and flame
Impinger and ion Oxygen ionisation detector
chromatography Nitrogen Compounds
Formic acid / Ammonia
Argon

Fourier Transform Infra-Red Methane Gas chromatography with

spectroscopy Carbon monoxide sulphur chemiluminescence
Gas chromatography with helium Carbon dioxide
detector
discharge ionisation detector
Hydrogen Quality Assurance
International analytical comparison

Objective – Assess comparability between different hydrogen purity laboratories

 Hydrogen quality – Why ?

Production / Customer /
distribution End users
• Optimisation • Reliability of FCEV
• Performance / (> 6000 hours)
• No incidents / stops
maintenance Legal requirements • Price
• Cost
for H2 Supplier

Standards:
ISO 14687-2:2012: Fuel characteristic
SAE J2719:2011: Hydrogen Fuel Quality
ISO/DIS19880-8: Fuel quality control
Pr EN17124: Hydrogen fuel
Analytical method / quality requirements

Laboratory
Sampling Reporting
analysis

End users /
Decision
makers

• Sampling point • Validated method • Report of analysis

• Sampling media • Calibration standards with uncertainty
• Sampling system • Quality control • Accreditation ISO
• Traceability 17025
• ISO 14687-2:2012 • ISO/CD 21087
• SAE J2719:2011
Research at NPL
(2016-2019)
• Purity and risk assessment
• Validated analytical methods for
ISO 14687-2
• Traceable methods for mass
measurements of hydrogen
absorbed in metal hydrides
(2017-2020) H2020 HYDRAITE (2018 – 2021)
• Flow metering • Impact of contaminants on fuel cells
• Quality assurance • Hydrogen quality monitoring at HRS
• Quality control • Analytical laboratories for H2 testing
• Sampling in Europe
• Supply chain contamination risk
assessment