Hydrogen Fuel: Quality Control and Process Monitoring in an Emerging Sector using Direct MS

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are key in the worldwide strategy to reduce global CO2 emission in transport. The quality of hydrogen fuel is critical to ensure the deployment of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. However, hydrogen contaminants (i.e. ammonia, formaldehyde, formic acid and CO2) are extremely difficult to measure accurately at very low amount fraction (nmol/mol) or to monitor their behavior in real time at fuel cell stack level.

SIFT-MS is a new tool for real-time, selective and economical trace analysis of these contaminants in hydrogen fuel. Direct, broad-spectrum analysis using SIFT-MS provides new opportunities across hydrogen for transport applications, including:

• Simple NH3, CH2O, CHOOH analysis
• Monitoring of real time oxidation of 13CO into 13CO2
• Real time monitoring of contaminant degradation in fuel cell stacks.

Key Learning Objectives

• Learn how hydrogen fuel is an important contributor to future energy needs
• Discover how low-concentration impurities impact fuel cell performance and lifetime
• Learn how SIFT-MS readily detects these chromatographically challenging trace impurities in real-time

Who Should Attend

• Researchers / R&D Managers
• Analytical chemists
• Laboratory Managers / Directors / Supervisors

Presenter: Thomas Bacquart, Ph.D. (Senior Research Scientist, National Physical Laboratory, United Kingdom)

Presenter: Mark Perkins, Ph.D. (Senior Applications Chemist, Anatune Limited, United Kingdom)