Probabilistic risk model for assessing hydrogen fuel contamination effects in automotive FC systems

Risto Tuominen, N. Helppolainen, Jari Ihonen, Jaana Viitakangas

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

    6 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Traces of contaminants in hydrogen fuel are known to have adverse effects on the performance of fuel cell road vehicles. In order to control the risk of such effects, tentative standards, such as ISO 14687-2:2012, have been issued specifying requirements for the purity of the dispensed fuel regarding selected individual contaminants. These concentrations limits are, however, based on limited test data and qualitative assessment of the risk.In this paper, a probabilistic simulation model developed in the HyCoRA project is described. The model allows quantification of the risk induced by fuel contaminants on FCEVs' performance, and assessment of the overall cost impact of quality control measure options if these are introduced in the fuel delivery chain. Thus, the quality control options having the best overall cost impact and being most cost-effective in controlling the fuel impurity risk can be pointed out. The model is implemented in MATLAB and applies a Monte Carlo simulation method to process the various sources of variability and uncertainty involved in such assessment.The FC contamination part of the model is based on CO adsorption on the anode platinum surface. In the model, the effects of catalyst aging, FCEV use profile, and the presence of CO-forming and other contaminants in the fuel coming from different production paths can be considered. To start with, only the effect of CO in hydrogen fuel produced by the NG-SMR-PSA process has been implemented. The model, however, can be expanded to other contaminants and hydrogen fuel production methods as sufficient data becomes available through experiments and data collection activities.The calculation example demonstrates proper functioning and outputs of the currently implemented model. For future exploitation, the current Matlab code is openly available for downloads on the HyCoRA project web-page.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)4143-4159
    JournalInternational Journal of Hydrogen Energy
    Volume43
    Issue number9
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2018
    MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

    Funding

    The research work leading to this paper has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme ( FP7/2007-2013 ) for the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Technology Initiative under grant agreement n° 621223 .

    Keywords

    • Carbon monoxide
    • Contamination
    • Cost optimization
    • PEMFC
    • Quality control
    • Risk model

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