Bacquart, T; Storms, W; Moore, N; Olden, J; Morris, A S O; Hookham, M; Murugan, A; Mattelaer, V (2024) Assessing the performance of Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles using synthetic hydrogen fuel. Energies, 17 (7). 1510

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Abstract

The deployment of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) using hydrogen is critical to achieve zero emissions from the transport sector. One key parameter influencing FCEV performance and durability is hydrogen fuel quality. The real impact of contaminants to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to performance is not currently well understood and requires reliable measurements from real life events (sampling and analysis of hydrogen fuel in poor performing vehicle) and experimental studies on the impact of synthetic hydrogen fuel quality on the FCEV. This paper presents a novel methodology to flow traceable hydrogen synthetic fuel directly to the tank of a FCEV. Four different synthetic fuels containing N2, CO and H2S were supplied to the FCEV, and subsequently sampled and analysed. The results demonstrated that the methodology was suitable to provide synthetic hydrogen fuel in FCEV without the need for large testing infrastucture. The synthetic fuels were used to power the FCEV which provided real-life performance testing of the fuel cell system using fuel containing controlled levels of contaminants. This is the first time a traceable H2 contamination impact study has been performed directly with a FCEV. The impact of CO and H2S at the threshold levels specified in ISO 14687:2019 on FCEV performance was tested, where even small exceedances of the threshold levels showed a significant impact even for short exposures. The methodology proposed in this article can be deployed to evaluate a large variety of hydrogen fuel compositions.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	hydrogen fuel; fuel cell performance; hydrogen quality; gas analysis; hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles
Subjects:	Analytical Science > Gas Standards
Divisions:	Atmospheric Environmental Sciences
Identification number/DOI:	10.3390/en17071510
Last Modified:	12 May 2025 13:37
URI:	https://eprintspublications.npl.co.uk/id/eprint/10158