H2IMS – Quality monitor at Hydrogen Fuel Stations

The online quality control system H₂IMS measures and logs continuously the hydrogen gas quality and sends an alarm if any substance is out of a specified range. The unique advantage of H₂IMS is that it also sends a notification, if unknown substances are detected. This gives the possibility to take action (e.g. plan the next service earlier) before the gas quality gets out of range and thus reducing the time where the fuel station is out of operation.

With the highest quality of emission standards nowadays to protect the environment, hydrogen fuelled modes of transportation are the future. With only water vapour emissions from the engine this mode of transportation does not emit any gases that may be critical to the environment.

One of the most expensive parts of a fuel cell, is the catalyst on the inner electrodes. This catalyst is vital for the efficiency of the fuel cell and thereby generates a higher driving range in an automobile. Unfortunately, they are very sensitive to impurities and can get destroyed if the hydrogen fuel does not have an extremely high purity.

The hydrogen that is being filled in an automobile goes through many steps. Beginning with the production, followed by transport to the station and several compression processes, there are numerous steps where the fuel could be contaminated. It is, therefore, crucial to monitor the quality as close as possible to the final stage to reduce the risk of damage compensation due to impurities in the gas.

Hence, ION-GAS, in collaboration with EMCEL (Engineering company for Fuel Cell, Hydrogen Technology and Electric Mobility) and STEP (Sensor and Electro technique) has developed an IMS based Hydrogen Quality Monitoring device, H₂IMS, for online quality monitoring at Hydrogen fuel stations.