(This article is sponsored by The Boston Group)

The federal government, in conjunction with industry and others, is undertaking a major effort to make the hydrogen economy a commercial reality within the next 20 years. Hydrogen and fuel cell development and deployment is faced with numerous technology, political, and socioeconomic challenges. The transportation sector, which includes the vehicles, the fueling and maintenance infrastructure, and the fuel supply system, has unique problems and opportunities for innovation. An essential requirement for the U.S. Department of Transportation is ensuring the safety of the transportation system while simultaneously working with the other federal agencies and the private sector to facilitate the successful adaptation and integration of the emerging hydrogen and fuel cell technology into the market. A necessary step in insuring safe and successful commercial fuel cell products is to develop the appropriate consensus codes and standards (C&S) for the industry.

A major impediment to the rapid commercialization of hydrogen and fuel cell products is the fact that technology innovation and product development has outpaced the development of the corresponding consensus codes and standards. There are three primary challenges to developing these codes and standards: 1) harmonization, 2) data, 3) and competition amongst the standard developing organizations. Data is the one area that the technology community can and does have a direct impact on solving the current shortcomings. Harmonization of domestic and international codes and standards, and determining which organization should develop a specific code or standards are also issues being addressed. In response to the needs of the industry, codes and standards, development for hydrogen is being conducted at an unprecedented pace. Already organizations such as the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) have developed and published new standards, such as SAE J2578, within a three-year timeframe. The speed of development, sometimes lacking in adequate data and long-term validation, may create risks to the efficacy of a code or standard.

There are two diametrically opposing concerns regarding hydrogen and fuel cell codes and standards--the need for rapid development of codes and standards with the need to develop them with adequate data and operational experience. Codes and standards are necessary to insure the safety and compatibility of a given technology. Historically, the lack of such standards has slowed technology implementation once a given technology, such as fuel cells, has reached a sufficient point of maturity. Concurrently, the codes and standards must be thoroughly developed and supported if they are going to be effective. A weakness with a standard could lead to a catastrophic incident; this could result in a substantial setback for the deployment of the hydrogen and fuel cell economy. Consequently, there is a clear need to complement the current research and development (R&D) with an expanded and complimentary evaluation effort.

Hydrogen storage is a prime example of the previously described issues. The objective of a substantial part of the national hydrogen research effort is to achieve the weight and volumetric energy density goals set by the U.S. Department of Energy. Near term technology solutions primarily use compressed gas storage, with the fuel storage demands driving towards the use of composite cylinders at pressures at 10,000 psi and higher. Pressure and thermal relief devices (PRD) protect all fuel cylinders. To date, the performance of these devices for compressed natural gas at 3600 psi has been less then adequate, even with design and manufacturing improvements. Despite conforming to the existing standard, PRD-1, these devices are susceptible to materials deformation and failure during their use. The elevated temperatures and pressures that will exist in hydrogen use pose additional design challenges. The cause of this deformation has not been properly identified. The Tufts University is playing a crucial role in determining the actual cause of some of the PRD failures, by gathering experimental data on materials properties and device performance. This data will directly support design, performance, testing and reliability requirements for a future hydrogen PRD standard.

Cooperation and collaboration between academia, industry and government is necessary to ensure successful technology development and deployment. The data obtained by academia and the federal government is only useful if it can be integrated into a product that can readily and cost effectively be manufactured. At the same time, fundamental and applied R&D should be guided by the end user and by the requirement that downstream products are viable within the existing codes and standards and regulatory framework. The numerous efforts underway at the Research abd Special Programs Administrations's (RSPA) Volpe Center, including the work conducted by Tufts University to support Volpe, exemplify this concept, yet other opportunities and needs exist and continued efforts are necessary to continue to develop the fuel cell industry.

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