The project
Programme EMPIR
The European Metrology Programme for Innovation and Research (EMPIR) has been developed as an integrated part of Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. It is implemented by the European Association of National Metrology institutes EURAMET and is based on Article 185 of the Lisbon Treaty.
Horizon 2020 aims to reinforce and extend the excellence of the EU’s science base and to consolidate the European Research Area in order to make the research and innovation system more competitive on a global scale.
The EMPIR programme has a duration of 10 years with 7 calls launched from 2014 to 2020. It is jointly funded by the EMPIR participating countries and the European Union.
It enables the collaboration of European metrology institutes (EURAMET members), industrial organisations/research centres and academia. EMPIR Joint Research Projects (JRPs) priorities are addressing the EU’s Grand Challenges in Health, Energy, Environment and Industry and are focusing on fundamental measurement science.
New calls integrated the EMPIR programme in 2015: Pre‐ and co‐normative research, Support for Impact, and Research potential.
Standardisation call
The pre‐ and co‐normative targeted programme of EMPIR is aiming at providing timely metrology research to underpin the quality and help the development of European or International standards. In all cross-cuttings standardisation areas, metrology research helps to improve the implementation of those standards in order to:
- enhance industrial competitiveness
- enable and enhance trade opportunities for new emerging products, services and technologies
- support quality of life issues (climate change, environment, health care, consumer protection) through scientific rigor in support of regulation
More information at http://msu.euramet.org/calls.html
Background
Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme encourages the decarbonisation of the transport sector in order to reduce the green‐house gases effect (European Directive on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure 2014/94/EU)
The Multi Annual Working Plan of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH-JU) for 2014-2020 pointed out the expected hydrogen activities for the next five years in Europe: “Hydrogen gas quality assurance at the nozzle still constitutes a challenge, due to the very stringent requirements for fuel gas impurity levels for automotive fuel cell applications. Currently, no simple methodology nor single instrumentation is available for low cost qualifications of hydrogen fuel. (…) Today, the lack of harmonized RCS (regulations, codes and standards, ed.) and PNR (pre-normative research, ed.) (…) is still recognized as a major barrier for the commercialization of FCH (Fuel Cell and Hydrogen, ed.) products”.
A working group WG 27 Hydrogen Fuel quality has been created within ISO/TC 197 in 2015 aiming at merging the ISO 14687 standards family.
Another working group WG 25 Hydrogen absorbed in reversible metal hydride has been created within ISO/TC 197 aiming at improving the normative framework related to the ISO 16111 standard.
Needs
It is stated that the hydrogen purity dispensed at hydrogen refueling points should comply with the technical specifications included in the ISO 14687‐2 standard. The rapid progress of the fuel cell electric vehicles and related technology are requiring revising this standard towards less constraining detection limits as mentioned directly in the standard. While ensuring the hydrogen specifications, the application of the revised standard through optimised validated analytical methods will enable a reduction in the number of required analyses.
Furthermore, the increased transport and storage activities of hydrogen require the development of new and safe storage techniques for large quantities of hydrogen.
The newly created working group ISO/TC 197/WG 25 Hydrogen absorbed in reversible metal hydride aims at improving the normative framework related to the ISO 16111 standard Developing Transportable gas storage devices ‐ Hydrogen absorbed in reversible metal hydride. Last version of 2008 of the standard presents technical limitations for large storage and issues for proper implementation. The standardisation work in this working group requires broadening the scope of the current standard to larger hydrogen volumes through traceable methods for the measurement of the amount of hydrogen absorbed in the metal hydrides (MH). Currently, the different methods available (i.e. mass methods, mass and volumetric flowmeters) do not provide accurate results.
Objectives
The overall objective is to evaluate the probability of hydrogen impurity affecting fuel cells and to develop analytical techniques for traceable measurements of the hydrogen impurity (research axes for the revision of the ISO 14687‐2 standard). In parallel, traceable methods to assess accurately the hydrogen mass absorbed and stored in metal hydrides (research axis for the revision of the ISO 16111 standard) will be developed and validated.
The objectives are:
- To develop hydrogen quality specifications for fuel cell vehicles, including tolerance levels for impurities in hydrogen and limits for the degradation of fuel cell performance as per ISO 14687‐2:2012 Hydrogen fuel ‐ Product specification – Part 2: Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell applications for road vehicles. This will include recommendations on maximum concentration of individual compounds based on the new fuel cell degradation studies and on the probability of presence.
- To propose optimised analytical protocols (including fit‐for‐purpose analytical methods) and assess an analyser that enables the implementation of ISO 14687‐2. The multicomponent analyser should have optimised sampling analysis and meet the required detection limits.
- To develop and validate traceable methods for measuring the hydrogen mass absorbed in storage tanks (hydride types AB, AB2 and AB5), with reference to ISO 16111:2008 Developing transportable gas storage devices ‐ Hydrogen absorbed in reversible metal hydride.
- To contribute to the standards development work of key European and International Standards Developing Organisations ensuring that the outputs of the project are aligned with their needs, communicated quickly to those developing the standards and to those who will use them, and in a form that can be incorporated into the standards at the earliest opportunity.