SAE J2719 Quality Hydrogen: Guidelines to Select the Most Suitable Purification Technology
APPLICATION NOTE
This application note reviews the most common technologies used to improve hydrogen (H2) quality down to at least 8 nines (8N) quality, explaining where each technology has advantages as transportation uses expand.
All the major car manufacturers have developed cars powered by proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, with thousands of cars being introduced to the market starting in 2015. This technology is a great step forward in the introduction of clean cars because the exhaust consists of only water vapor.
A necessary requirement for the mass adoption of this new vehicle technology is the development of a suitable infrastructure capable of filling car tanks at high pressure, 700 bars, with high-purity H2.
Per the hydrogen fuel quality specifications for polymer electrolyte fuel cells in road vehicles, published by the U.S. Department of Energy, impurities such as carbon monoxide (CO) and sulphur compounds, are very tight, down to 200 ppb or even less. This is because of their ability to deplete the fuel cell.
