ISO TC 197 WG 12 Meets in Seoul, Korea
Karen Hall, National Hydrogen Association
Professor Dr. Yasuo Takagi, the Convenor of WG12, opened the meeting and welcomed all experts and delegates to the working group 12 meeting on June 6-7 in Seoul, Korea. ISO TS14687-2: Hydrogen Fuel Quality Specification has been approved by ISO TC 197 for publication. The working group is now working toward a Draft International Standard, which the experts agree will take a couple years to develop. Long-term R&D projects are required to fill in the data gaps in order to progress from a Technical Specification to a Draft International Standard. In addition, it is desirable to address the concerns of all stakeholders of the proposed International Standard, including fuel providers and station operators. The development of test methods was one issue raised by many stakeholders. In addition long-term research on the effects of non-hydrogen constituents in hydrogen fuel is required to validate or refine the values that are currently defined in the Technical Specification.
 Japan presented interim results of accumulation behavior of some critical non-hydrogen constituents, as well as their plans for testing, which use the same conditions and cells as the data developed over 2 years ago. A factor of 1/500 is being used in determining the recommended threshold levels of constituents causing irreversible or partially reversible performance loss. This factor is proposed by Japan and is based on a desired fuel efficiency of 99.8%. North America prepared and submitted a position statement on this issue in February 2005. Karen Hall recommended the WG review those issues in advance of the testing in an attempt to address the issues raised by the North American experts.
Japan, Korea, and the JRC/FCTES QA will examine the test protocol presented by the North American team at the WG12 meeting in November 2006 and consider adoption of the protocol as presented or amended at the next WG12 meeting. The objective of adopting a protocol is to enable testing to proceed on a common basis among all WG12 participants and to allow WG12 to utilize the laboratory capabilities and expertise among all of its members most efficiently. The adoption of a common protocol does not preclude use of specific test procedures needed for specific tests. Changes and exceptions from the protocol made in such cases should be thoroughly documented. Much discussion on whether single cell tests are meaningful. It was agreed WG 12 should continue forward, and the protocol could be validated in parallel.
FCTestNet will send Working Group 12 the data reporting format the European Commission is using for consideration so all parties can use the same format. The Working Group should also determine a baseline for the test cells to be used.
Japan has started a project to engage the fuel providers in the issue of hydrogen fuel quality. They have begun to address cost versus purity trade-off. The preliminary results have not yet been validated, however Japan shared some data with the Working Group to allow participating countries a chance to comment or develop their own data.
The Japanese work was performed based on one selected process: NG on-site SMR-PSA
Product H2 purities: 99 – 99.99%
H2 production capacity: 300 Nm3/h
H2 pressure in the station: 35 MPa
Boundary – charge tank (feedstock reservoir/receiver) to on-board fuel tank
Cost estimation – fixed cost: labor + capital cost + G&A
Variable costs: feedstock, utility, consumables
Operation time – 13 hours/days: affects the facility utilization factor, hence fixed cost portion of supply costs
Preliminary Trade-off results:
| Impurities (ppm) |
99.99% |
99% |
| |
CO ≤ 1
CO2 ≤ 1
N2 ≤ 50
O2 ≤ 2
HC ≤ 1 |
CO ≤ 100
CO2 ≤ 0.14
N2 ≤ 0.29
O2 ≤ 2
HC ≤ 0.56 |
| PSA recovery |
80% |
85% |
| Efficiency (HHV) |
73.1% |
73% |
H2 supply cost
(JY/Nm3) |
110 |
110 |
Initial preliminary data suggests that in this case:
- Product hydrogen purity does not affect the hydrogen supply cost significantly, which will not be the driving force to update the threshold limit numbers.
- Fixed cost contribution to total cost is much greater than the variable costs because of the low utilization factor of the facility.
- Attention should be focused more on costs associated with the quality assurance.
This preliminary data has yet to be validated.
Japan also provided impurity data from the running refuelling stations in Japan. This analysis is made by the station operators – all use reformers – and continuous monitoring of CO at the PSA exit. Batch analysis (varies slightly by station), in general 1-6 times per year of N2, CO, CO2, CH4, O2 at the PSA exit.
Tests continue.
 No attention to content of inert in Japan currently as almost all NG is imported as LNG – perhaps in the future it will be a mix, but not so significant as in the US.
Jim Ohi presented the many activities that ASTM has undertaken to address the development of analysis in the Technical Specification. Members of the working group from Japan and Korea agreed to review these draft documents and provide input in support of their use as references for the Draft International Standard.
Jim Ohi presented the modelling activities undertaken in North America. There was much feedback on specifics of the modelling work to date, including the importance of the variable “R,” which relates to the effects of recirculation.
To the extent possible, WG12 will respond to comments received on TS14687-2 (Document N78) that have not yet been addressed as it prepares the Committee Draft (CD) for an International Standard. Completion of the CD will depend on progress in cell testing, fuel provider integration, and analytical methodology development. Based on data and information needed to prepare the CD and what is received at the next WG12 meeting, a timetable for completion of the CD will be determined at this meeting.
WG12 will conduct its next meeting in conjunction with the ISO TC197 Plenary meeting in Italy in early November.
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