New standards on hydrogen quality and storage

A European Research Programme to move standards forward accuracy

This European Research Programme under the aegis of EMPIR*, has been carried out in partnership with industry, European metrology institutes and research centres. It was intended to feed the revision and development of new ISO standards for hydrogen as a fuel. The work focused on the quality of hydrogen used as a fuel in electric vehicles, the validition of analytical methods for measuring these impurities, the impact of key impurities on fuel cells and the storage of hydrogen in metal hydride tanks.

* European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research

A proposal to revise the ammonia concentration threshold

The ISO/TC 197 on Hydrogen Technologies in charge of these ISO standards (14687, 21087, 19880-8, 16111) was stakeholder in the project and followed with interest the results throughout the project period. Thus, proposals and recommendations have been made to the various standardization working groups dealing with these standards. Among them, the ammonia concentration limit threshold has been proposed to be relaxed to 0.5 µmol/mol whereas it is currently 0.1µmol/mol in ISO 14687. The current level of 0.05 µmol/mol for halogenated compounds seems reasonable considering the need for further research on the potential decomposition of these compounds in fuel cell systems. It was also recommended to validate the analytical methods for the measurement of these impurities with reference materials as specified in ISO 21087 and to try to rationalize the cost of these measurements by proposing a multi-component analyzer or by combining of analytical techniques couplings. The reports, sent to the international technical committee ISO/TC 197, "will constitute seed working documents to be used for future consideration  in the timeline of standards revision cycles".

For more details, consult the website of the European HYDROGEN project