Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Safety

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New International Working Group Holds Kick-Off Meeting in Tokyo
Karen Hall, National Hydrogen Association

Group at work

ISO/TC 197 Working Group (WG) 14 held its first meeting on March 5th in Tokyo. This new working group is developing ISO 14687-3: Hydrogen fuel — Product Specification — Part 3: Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells applications for stationary appliances.

Discussion and Issues
Stationary PEM fuel cells do not require the same level of purity of hydrogen as PEM fuel cell road vehicles, although the constituents of the impurity are still important.

The new working group discussed the merits of having all grades of hydrogen in a single document ultimately, but agreed the scope of the task at hand is to define requirements for hydrogen quality and sampling for PEM stationary fuel cell systems.

WG 14 began refining the draft scope of the standard as follows:

This international Standard specifies the quality characteristics of hydrogen fuel in order to assure uniformity of the hydrogen product for utilization in stationary proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell power systems.

This standard covers stationary PEM fuel cell power systems that are connected and fixed in place, and is applicable to:

distributed power generation

back-up power generation

remote power generation

power generation for telecom applications; and

cogeneration for residential and commercial applications.

This standard applies when the supplier and the system manufacturer agree on the hydrogen specification as described herein. This standard does not apply to micro, portable, and motive applications.

Feedback on the proposed scope is being sought. There is interest in ensuring the standard will not be mandatory unless both supplier and manufacturer agree. The wording needs to cover the case where individual contracts take precedence over standards as well as the case where adopted standards may carry the force of law.

The working group agreed to harmonize with ISO 14687-2 as much as practical. It was noted that the hydrogen supply methods for stationary applications will be different than for hydrogen refueling stations. In addition, cycle times and anticipated system lifetimes will be different for the two applications. Therefore the constituent limits and method of testing fuel quality would need to be different between stationary applications and vehicle refueling.

Group seated

The WG recognizes that the hydrogen supply for stationary applications may include reformate, hydrogen produced following pressure swing absorption (PSA) of reformate, and hydrogen produced from electrolysis. Therefore the WG may create multiple specifications that relate to the feedstock for the stationary fuel cell system.

An appropriate boundary point would be defined where the hydrogen quality sample will be taken. This will be between the final production and the fuel cell, and will relate to the stationary fuel cell system.

The WG agreed to work on pipeline hydrogen first, then consider hydrogen cylinder (remote power) applications.

There was also agreement to start work with impurities composition of single-pass gas flow before discussing that of recycle gas flow.

The activity will begin with systems assuming 40,000 hours of life, and then consider other lifetimes.

Water content is to be reported, but not specified. The table is based on dry hydrogen.

The work is preliminary, and countries are now encouraged to provide additional experts. In particular, hydrogen supply and gas distribution experts are needed.

Date of Next Meeting
The WG desires a meeting in September in Canada. If Canada is unable to host, the meeting may take place in the US.