Hydrogen fuel for buses and cars must be almost perfectly pure, but checking its quality currently takes days and costs thousands of pounds per test. The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is building a low-cost sensor system that will sit inside a hydrogen refuelling station and continuously sniff the fuel for contaminants. If it detects a problem, it alerts the station operator immediately, who can then send a sample to NPL’s lab for a full analysis. This replaces the current practice of sending every sample to the lab, which is too slow and expensive to scale up. If the system works, it could solve a looming infrastructure bottleneck. The UK and Europe are expected to have thousands of hydrogen refuelling stations by 2030, serving heavy-duty vehicles like lorries, trains, and ships. Without a rapid, automated way to verify fuel purity, drivers risk performance loss or engine damage, and operators face costly shutdowns. This project aims to keep the hydrogen supply chain reliable and affordable as it expands, giving consumers confidence that the fuel they buy meets international standards.
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The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the UK's National Measurement Institute and is a world-leading centre of excellence in developing and applying the most accurate measurement standards, science and technology available. For more than a century, NPL has developed and maintained the nation's primary measurement standards. These standards underpin an infrastructure of traceability throughout the UK and the world that ensures accuracy and consistency of measurement. Hydrogen is used extensively in industry and is already sold commercially as a zero-emission fuel for busses and passenger cars. In the near future hydrogen use will expand in the UK and abroad as new zero emission fuels to heat homes and power vehicles, particularly heavy duty vehicles such as buses, HGVs, trains, ships and aeroplanes. When it's used to power fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV), the hydrogen needs to be very pure, as even trace amounts of impurities can impact the vehicle's performance (performance loss, shorter range or lifetime). NPL is a world leader in accurate measurement of impurities in hydrogen fuel and offers a commercial service where hydrogen fuel is sampled from the HRS and sent for analysis at NPL using sophisticated and sensitive instruments. This service is already used by HRS operators to periodically check that the hydrogen they sell commercially meets required standards. Unfortunately, the process is expensive, slow to return results and generally won't be suitable when there are 1000's of HRS across the UK and Europe (expected before 2030). A much more rapid and cost effective approach is needed. In this project NPL will develop a novel low-cost online H2 fuel quality monitoring system that will trigger a warning when any impurities that could damage a fuel cell reach critical levels. These systems (composed of two sensor types) will operate continuously at a HRS, taking small samples from the station's hydrogen supply. NPL scientists will then only need to take a sample back to the laboratory for a full analysis when a problem is detected. HRS operators will also be able to know immediately if there is a problem with the hydrogen they are selling and act as necessary. This innovative solution is a significant improvement over current practice and will lead to lower priced zero emission fuels and provide consumers with greater confidence that the fuel they are buying meets internationally recognised specifications.
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