Progress will be reported on the development of HEMS, a novel technology for the measurement of impurities in hydrogen in trace concentrations. HEMS (Hydrogen Elimination Mass Spectroscopy) has the potential of reducing the cost of analysis for hydrogen in many different applications, from hydrogen used in fuel cells, to semiconductors. HEMS can be used to validate compliance with hydrogen purity standards SAE-J2719 and ISO 14687, enabling analysis at point of use at fueling stations.The core of the technology is a palladium-alloy membrane, developed by Power and Energy, Inc. which selectively eliminates hydrogen, while retaining all the impurities. The extreme selectivity of the membrane to hydrogen allows concentrating the impurities, thus simplifying their analysis. Performance of the membrane can be quantified by the enrichment factor, or the ratio of the quantity of hydrogen initially present in the sample to the remaining quantity of hydrogen after elimination. Values for the enrichment factors in excess of 1E8 are obtainable.The ability of concentrating impurities, at the core of HEMS can be coupled to a variety of analytical techniques. In the current implementation a mass spectrometer is used.We will report results on the analytical figures of merit, including linearity, precision, accuracy for the analytes listed in the SAE-J2719 standard.

Hydrogen elimination mass spectroscopy (HEMS) for trace level analysis of impurities in hydrogen gas

248th National Meeting (2014)

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