Hydrogen plays a key role in Power-to-X solutions to produce e-fuels. Safety in the handling of hydrogen is, however, a major concern; When hydrogen is produced electrolytically, hydrogen and oxygen gas mixtures are created which pose a considerable threat to both equipment and personnel. The trace gas concentrations must therefore continuously be monitored to enable prompt shut down of production facilities if threshold values are exceeded.
In this project, a novel sensor type for safety process monitoring of hydrogen is developed and demonstrated for applications such as electrolysis systems. The benefits of the sensor type include long-term stability and internal diagnostics based on signal redundancy, which will enable increased system uptime and thereby higher productivity of electrolysis systems. Furthermore, the ability of the sensors to measure directly in gas process streams will greatly reduce the complexity of existing gas monitoring systems, where gas conditioning and handling before measurements significantly adds to the system cost. The overall benefit of the sensors is therefore a reduction in the cost of producing hydrogen.
The hydrogen society is still at its infancy although it has been discussed and prepared for decades, and it can therefore be difficult as an entrant to find guidance of the regulatory framework with standards, safety guidelines, certification needs etc. This is especially the case for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), and the proposed project therefore also uses the case of the proposed hydrogen sensor as a case study for knowledge build-up on how best to guide SMEs entering the scene as suppliers for the hydrogen-based future energy society. One of the objectives is to strengthen knowledge and create an overview of relevant standards and a guideline of the right order to engage with these at the various TRL steps towards commercialization of hydrogen-related components.
The project is funded by the Det Energiteknologiske Udviklings- og Demonstrationsprogram (EDUP) and undertaken in partnership with Sulfilogger, Green Hydrogen Systems, Danish Gas Technical Center and Energy Cluster Denmark.
The project was initiated in January 2022 and ends in December 2024.
