Advanced methods and materials for quality assurance of fuel cell hydrogen

Due to the damaging environmental effects of using fossil fuels in the transport industry, national and international targets have been set in order to reduce CO2 emissions. One solution to this problem is the further adoption of fuel cell vehicles which use hydrogen as a fuel source. In the UK it is expected that 1.6 million fuel cell vehicles will be on the road by 2030, with 1,100 hydrogen refueling stations in operation to support this growing sector.
In Europe, it is mandatory for all hydrogen refueling stations to prove that their stored hydrogen is pure enough to prevent degradation of fuel cell components. The international standard ISO 14687 - 2:2012 2 specifies the maximum impurity levels of 13 gaseous impurities that can be present in fuel cell hydrogen. There is a large analytical challenge associated with performing quality control to this standard, as most of the impurities listed will be difficult to measure using standard techniques. Some impurities, such as oxygen, are largely affected by air contamination, while others such as formaldehyde specify such low levels that specialized equipment is required to provide an accurate measurement.
While there are a number of techniques suggested by ISO 14687-2:2012 2 to analyze these impurities the volume of equipment required makes providing a full analysis unreasonable for most laboratories. In some cases more than 9 pieces of equipment are required, making the capital cost for a laboratory extremely large. Additionally a large sample would be required which is unreasonable, as fuel suppliers will wish to preserve as much of their product as possible.
This PhD project will investigate how impurity measurement could be made easier, and cheaper through the use of hydrogen enrichment using palladium alloy membranes, along with some of the challenges and potential solutions involved in the development of such a device.