The hydrogen and
fuel cell center
ZBT GmbH

Contact

Dr. Christian Spitta

Dr.-Ing. Christian Spitta

head of
Department hydrogen infrastructure

phone: +49-203-7598-4277
c.spitta(at)zbt.de

Hy-Lab - Hydrogen quality laboratory

In terms of gas analyzing ZBT has a more than 15 years experience: The quality of hydrogen as fuel is defined in the international standards ISO 14687-2:2012 and EN 17124:2018. In these standards a broad list of impurities is defined with threshold values down to the ppb-level. Only a few independent laboratories worldwide are capable of measuring hydrogen in accordance to these standards.

Within the German Hy-Lab project, which is coordinated by ZBT, ZBT has built up a hydrogen quality laboratory and developed analytical methods with the capability to analyze the hydrogen quality according to these international standards. For calibration purpose a mass-flow-controller and a gas mixing pump based gas dilution system and methods for sample preparation and sample transfer have been developed.

Hy-SaM – Hydrogen sampling Module
ZBT's HyLab (2020)

Analytical methods available at ZBT for hydrogen fuel quality analysis.

Impurity

ISO 14687:2019
EN 17124:2018
[µmol/mol]

Analytical Method

Detection Limit
[µmol/mol]

Water

5

QCM

1

Total Hydrocarbons

2

GC-PED

0.01*

Methane

100

GC-PED

0.01

Oxygen

5

GC-PED

0.012

Helium

300

EI-MS

0.01

Argon

300

GC-PED

0.05

Nitrogen

300

GC-PED

0.05

Carbon Dioxide

2

IMR-MS

0.075

Carbon Monoxide

0.2

GC-PED

0.01

Total sulphur compounds

0.004

TD-GC-SCD

0.0002 (H2S)

Formaldehyde

0.2

IMR-MS

0.01

Formic Acid

0.2

IMR-MS

0.01

Ammonia

0.1

IMR-MS

0.01

Halogenated compounds

0.05

IMR-MS

0.01 (CHCl3)

Hy-SaM – Hydrogen sampling Module

A Hydrogen sampling Module (Hy-SaM) has been developed for hydrogen sampling at HRS and other parts of the hydrogen supply chain: 

  • CE certification
  • Sampling according to ISO 19880-1 & SAE J2601
  • No override of fueling protocol
  • No COM interface, no usage of electronics
  • Coated parts and cylinders
  • Multiple sampling (up to three in parallel)
  • 2,25 or 10 l sampling cylinders
  • Optional combination with particulates sampling device

ZBT is closely cooperating with the Clean energy partnership (CEP) as external partner and the German H2 Mobility. Several sampling campaigns at HRS have been performed.

In addition to these German activities, ZBT has established a European network and is involved in several EU projects. Within Hydraite ZBT will be established as European hydrogen quality laboratory. Furthermore, in the EU project MetroHyVe2 methodological investigations for hydrogen metering, analysis, sampling and online analysis will be undertaken.

Last update:  07.09.2020