USFCC Codes and Standards Activities and Testing Protocols

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USFCC Codes and Standards Activities and Testing
Protocols
US Fuel Cell Council
October 22, 2004 Robert Wichert, P. Eng. USFCC
Technical Director wichert_at_fuelcells.com TEL 001
916 966 9060 FAX [phone]
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Agenda

• USFCC Introduction
• USFCC Codes and Standards Priorities
• Materials and Components Working Group Summary
• Materials Testing efforts
• Electrical Conductivity
• Single Cell Test Protocol
• Durability Testing
• Future Direction

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US Fuel Cell Council Mission

• The U.S. Fuel Cell Council is an industry
  association dedicated to fostering the
  commercialization of fuel cells in the United
  States. Our members include the world's leading
  fuel cell developers, manufacturers, suppliers
  and customers.

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US Fuel Cell Council Codes Standards Policies

• International Standards Policy
• The USFCC will take a leadership role in
  developing international standards for the
  purpose of encouraging the worldwide adoption of
  fuel cell technologies.
• USFCC members and staff participate in IEC, ISO,
  and UN standards efforts.

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US Fuel Cell Council Codes Standards Policies

• Consensus Based Standards Policy
• Some situations may not lend themselves to
  consensus based standards but the USFCC will
  encourage consensus based standards and the USFCC
  will work with those outside the consensus based
  approach to facilitate and encourage change to a
  consensus based system.

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US Fuel Cell Council

• Multi-national Trade Association
• Supports commercialization of products from all
  nations
• Supports commercialization for all fuel cell
  applications
• 120 Member Companies
• Real Products with Real Partnerships

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2004 Membership Make Up
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Development of Fuel Cell Products FuelCell
Energy, Inc. Heliocentris Plug Power
Inc. IdaTech UTC Fuel Cells DaimlerChrysler Caterp
illar Electric Power Group Concurrent
Technologies Corporation Siemens
Westinghouse Nissan Technical Center N.A.,
Inc. Nuvera Fuel Cells Ballard Power
Systems Umicore Autocat USA, Inc. Columbian
Chemicals Company ReliOn De Nora North America,
Inc. Dow Corning Corporation Freudenberg-NOK
General Partnership National Fuel Cell Research
Center MTI Micro Fuel Cells Global
Thermoelectric Proton Energy Systems,
Inc. Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited Teledyne Energy
Systems, Inc. Smart Fuel Cell, GmbH Fuel Cell
Technologies, Ltd. General Electric Hybrid Power
Habco, Inc. HyRadix, Inc. Neah Power Systems,
Inc. ElectroChem, Inc. General Motors Toyota
Motor North America Ztek UltraCell Inc. Franklin
Fuel Cells Inc. Renew Power, Inc. Hydrogenics
Corporation Motorola Labs
Educational Institutions University of South
Carolina University of Houston Breakthrough
Technolgies Institute Kettering
University Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Suppliers to the Fuel Cell Industry SGL TECHNIC
Inc. Donaldson Company, Inc. DuPont Fuel
Cells Parker Hannifin Corporation Tenneco
Automotive Engelhard Corporation Graftech,
Inc. Johnson Matthey, Inc. Dana
Corporation 3M Porvair Fuel Cell
Technologies Energy Conversion Devices,
Inc. Asbury Graphite Mills Methanex, Inc. Gore
Fuel Cell Technologies Syntroleum
Corporation Panasonic Technologies,
Inc. Sud-Chemie, Inc. Mott Corporaiton Entegris,
Inc. Bulk Molding Compounds, Inc. Delphi
Corporation Air Products and Chemicals,
Inc. Morgan Fuel Cell Exergy, Inc. Ion Power,
Inc. QuestAir Technologies, Inc. Millennium Cell,
Inc. NexTech Materials, Ltd. Atofina Chemicals,
Inc. Foamex H.C. Starck, Inc. Ogura Industrial
Corp. Superior Graphite Company SOFCo-EFS
Holdings LLC ATMI GmbH Cabot Superior
MicroPowders, Corporation BIC Corporation PolyFuel
, Inc. Hoku Scientific, Inc. Gas Technology
Institute The Gillette Company Energizer Battery
Associations Methanol Institute NextEnergy
Corporation Houston Advanced Research
Center World Fuel Cell Council Cooperative
Research Network (NRECA) SOCA Renewable Fuels
Association National Joint Apprenticeship
Training
Utility Member Bonneville Power
Administration American Electric Power
Fuels MesoFuel, Inc. ConocoPhilllips
Company Stuart Energy USA ChevronTexaco Energy
Technology Systems
Government Agency California Air Resources
Board Office of Navy Research South Coast Air
Quality Management District U.S. Army CERL U.S.
Department of Energy Delaware Fuel Cell
Consortium Ohio Department of Development
Other Connecticut Clean Energy Fund Updike, Kelly
Spellacy, P.C. Underwriters Laboratories,
Inc. CSA International US EPA
Research Argonne National Laboratory TIAX, LLC RIT
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US Fuel Cell Council Codes Standards Efforts

• Codes Standards Working Group
• Mostly Stationary Fuel Cell Efforts
• Transportation Working Group
• Coordinated with SAE
• Stack Materials Components Working Group
• Emphasizing Standardized Protocols
• Portable Power Working Group
• Focused on Micro-Fuel Cells

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Areas of Concern

• Global Technical Regulations for Vehicles
• International Electrotechnical Commission
  Standards
• Hydrogen Quality Standards
• Stack Material Components
• Micro Fuel Cell Regulations
• Portable Fuel Cell Regulations
• Propane Quality Standards
• Standardized Industry Error Codes

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Codes Standards Strategic Plan

• Give the highest priority to standards activities
  that support commercialization, and that are open
  for comment or action.

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CS WG Highest Priority Items

• Stationary Fuel Cell Hardware Standards
  Participation
• IEC TC 105 International
• Nomenclature
• Fuel Cell Module
• Safety
• Performance
• Installation
• Portable
• Micro
• Fuel Cell Component Standards Participation
• Hydrogen Sensors - ANSI/ISA 12.13.01/02
• Inverters - UL 1741

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CS WG Highest Priority Items

• Hydrogen Infrastructure Participation
• Hydrogen Purity Work
• ISO TC 197 Working Group 12
• Hydrogen Filling Stations
• ISO TC 197 WG 5
• Hydrogen Coordinating Groups
• ASME, ICC, NFPA, CGA, DOE

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CS WG Medium Priority / Monitoring

• Portable Fuel Cell Standards
• IEC TC 105 WG 7 -- Portable
• Micro Fuel Cell Standards
• IEC TC 105 WG 8 -- Micro Safety
• IEC TC 105 WG 9 -- Micro Performance
• IEC TC 105 WG 10 -- Micro Interchangeability
• Portable Fuel Cell Trans. Task Force

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CS WG Medium Priority / Monitoring

• Transportation Fuel Cell Standards
• SAE, IEC TC 105 WG 6, UL 2267 (Fuel Cell Powered
  Lift Trucks)
• Hydride Storage Component Standards
• ISO TC 197 WG 10 -- International
• Hydrogen Generator Standards
• ISO TC 197 WG 8 - Electrolyzers
• ISO TC 197 WG 9 - Reformers

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CS WG Feedback to Members

• Monthly Conference Calls
• Monthly Minutes
• Coordination with www.fuelcellstandards.com

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Portable Power Working Group Highest Priority

• Regulations DOT/USFCC Proposal to UN Committee
  of Experts on Transportation of Dangerous Goods
• Methanol Cartridges
• Safety Standards Micro Fuel Cells
• UL 2265
• IEC TC105

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Portable Power Working Group Expected Returns

• Regulations
• UN approval of model regulation
• ICAO, IATA, FAA, etc. acceptance
• Allow methanol cartridges/fuel cells on-board
• Codes Standards
• US and International Safety standards in place
• Plan first published drafts in 2004
• Interchangeability and Performance standards
• Working groups in place

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Transportation Working Group
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Transportation Working Group
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Fuel Quality Task Force Status

• USFCC is actively working with DOE/NREL in trying
  to determine what impurities are actually
  contaminants.
• USFCC feels that they can support this effort buy
  supplying technical guidance in generating test
  plans, test methods and evaluating data.

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Fuel Quality Task Force Status

• USFCC has two working groups addressing this
  task.
• Materials and Components Working Group
• Transportation Working Group
• Additionally, a joint task force was initiated
  with members from both groups (JHQTF).

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Fuel Quality Task Force Status

• The Transportation Working Group is focusing on
  designing protocols to ensure that the impurities
  of interest are identified, that sufficient data
  is reported so that the test data can be properly
  applied by those skilled in the art, and that
  proper test programs are developed generating
  meaningful data, (e.g. OEMs).
• To do this the Transportation Working Group
  generated a Joint Task Force with the Materials
  and Components Working Group.

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Fuel Quality Task Force Status

• Drafts Being Developed
• USFCC Single Cell Testing Protocol (Fuel Cell
  Test Procedure Polarization Curve)
• USFCC Fuel Cell Test Station Requirements and
  Verification Procedure
• Additionally, this working group contracted
  AMPTIAC to conduct and publish a general
  literature search. This document reviewed and
  categorized hundreds of papers. This document is
  basically an index and is available to the
  general public for a fee.

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Fuel Quality Task Force Status

• The following companies have actually written
  text incorporated into the JHQTF documents noted
  on the next slide
• 3M
• General Motors
• Asbury Graphite Mills
• IdaTech
• Ballard Power Systems
• Johnson Matthey, Inc
• ChevronTexaco

• Plug Power
• DaimlerChrysler
• SGL Technic
• Dupont
• Umicore Autocat USA
• Freudenberg-NOK
• United Technologies Corporation

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Fuel Quality Task Force Status

• List of Potential Hydrogen Contaminant Compounds
  and References to Published Results on these
  Compounds (010-TR-H2-TP-040716)
• Test Measurements Necessary for Industry to
  Understand and Apply Generated Test Data
  (007-TR-H2-TP-040715)
• In Progress - Primer for Generating Test Plans
  and Programs (003-TR-H2-TP-040714)

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USFCC Goals

• To support the generation of valid commercial
  hydrogen quality specifications by supplying
  guidance and expertise to the SDOs.
• To supply best practices as an example to the
  industry.
• To represent all of our members vested interest.
• To interest stakeholders not presently involved
  in this effort.
• And invite other parties not presently engaged
  but interested in supporting this effort to
  contact USFCC.

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Materials and Components Working Group

• Mission Statement
• The mission of the Fuel Cell Stack Materials and
  Components Working Group of the US Fuel Cell
  Council is to address the issues in the
  production and supply of materials and
  components, and their specification and
  standardization that will lead to a reliable
  supply of components and sub-assemblies that
  constitute fuel cell stacks. The Materials and
  Components Working Group will work in concert
  with the other Working Groups to further the
  Council's mission and assist with membership
  recruitment.

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Material Components Overview of Efforts

• Task Forces
• Electrical Conductivity Testing Protocols
• Eve Steigerwalt - DANA Corp
• GDL Testing
• Emory DeCastro - ETEK
• Single Cell Testing Protocol
• Dawn McNeil - Teledyne
• Joint H2 Purity
• Bill Collins - UTC

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Working Group Accomplishments

• Contaminants literature search and report
• Electrical conductivity testing method
• Conductivity testing Round Robin
• Gas Diffusion Layer industrial survey
• Single Cell Testing Protocol
• Single Cell Testing Round Robin
• Test Station Calibration
• Durability testing matrix kickoff

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Materials Components Working Group Codes,
Standards, and Protocol Activities

• Highest Priority Items for the Members
• Open methods for developers/suppliers to
  communicate properties of materials
• Single Cell Test Protocol development
• Determining what are the critical measurements
  for materials (ie. Plate conductivity, durability
  measurements etc)

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Materials Components Working Group Expected
Returns - What is the goal?

• FC development and eventual market acceleration
  by reducing duplicate efforts for materials
  understanding
• USFCC standards for testing
• New Work
• PEM FC longevity measurement

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Electrical Conductivity Testing
Objective To present a general test procedure
for measuring through-plane electrical
conductivity for material and bipolar plate
development

• Update
• Test protocol developed
• Controls tested by 9 participants
• Round-Robin testing completed
• Presented at Grove 2003
• Full report to be published 2005

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Single Cell Testing Protocol

• Protocol Intent
• Develop a single-cell test method for PEM
  material evaluation
• Establish baseline performance using
• standardized set of hardware
• commercially available materials
• standardized conditions

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Single Cell Testing Protocol

• Protocol Intent
• Develop a single-cell test method for PEM
  material evaluation so that...
• laboratories can openly publish testing results
  for a new material or component in a documented,
  verifiable manner
• relative comparisons of materials/components/condi
  tions can be made to established baseline
• as new materials and/or components are compared
  against the baseline, published data can be used
  as new baseline

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Single Cell Testing Protocol

• Protocol Intent
• Accelerate understanding through standardization
  and open discussion

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Single Cell Testing Protocol Scope

• Protocol consists of the following procedures
• cell assembly
• leak testing
• initial break-in
• conditioning
• H2 electrochemical crossover measurement
• polarization curve

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Single Cell Testing Protocol Scope

• Baseline Hardware and Materials selected for
  commercial availability and robustness in
  multi-lab round-robin
• Teledyne Energy Systems Fuel Cell Hardware
  consisting of POCO graphite and co-flow
  configuration triple serpentine flow fields
• Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Silicone Coated
  Fabric
• Dupont Nafion 1135 Membranes
• DeNora ETEK V2 Diffuser Cloth

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Single Cell Testing Protocol Round Robin Testing

• Coordinated by Los Alamos National Labs
• 4 duplicate cell assemblies
• Assembly, initial break-in at LANL
• Tested at
• Greenlight
• Teledyne
• Electrochem
• Returned for final testing at LANL

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Testing Protocol

• Pressure Testing Performed to
• Verify proper hardware sealing
• Determine a gross crossover leak rate
• Electrochemically determine hydrogen crossover
• First Stage Break-In
• Voltage Cycling at 30 minutes per setting (0.94V
  to 0.60V at 10 Stoich, 10 Amps)
• Second Stage Break-In
• Voltage Cycling for 6 hours at 20 minutes per
  setting (0.70V to 0.50V)

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Testing Protocol

• Fourth Stage
• Two sets of polarization curves were run 3 times
  with a 10 minute period between run until
  stabilization (less than 5mV deviation at 40A)
• Conditioning necessary to re-humidify the fuel
  cell prior to running a test
• 20A Load for 4 hours
• Considered complete when voltage is equilibrated

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Round Robin Testing

• Four Single Cells Tested at Four Different
  Facilities Using Established Single Cell Testing
  Protocol
• Cells were returned to original test-site for
  final testing

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Results

• Hydrogen cross-over measurements
• Break-in Results
• Polarization Curves
• Protocol I (60oC, Ambient pressure)
• Protocol II (80oC, 25 PSIG)

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Polarization Curves
To be presented at The Fuel Cell Seminar,
November 5, 2004, San Antonio, Texas, USA
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Summary

• Performance variations indicate specific changes
  to the protocol are necessary.
• Comparable results using Protocol II also support
  the above.
• Variations in the test results led to discussions
  that helped identify and correct issues regarding
  testing equipment and calibration techniques used
  at the different sites.

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Future Plans

• To utilize our learnings to modify and/or improve
  the existing protocol
• To expand the current protocol to include
  longevity and durability testing
• To define a calibration procedure for test
  stations running these types of measurements
• YOU can participate.

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Future Plans

• Results of Round-Robin to be presented at Fuel
  Cell Seminar on November 5, 2004
• cell to cell variability
• lab to lab results
• Update protocol based on learnings from Round
  Robin
• Single Cell Test Protocol Workshop, Fuel Cell
  Seminar
• Next Round Robin
• combine with test station calibration effects
• tested at Materials suppliers

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Durability/Longevity Testing Plan

• Focus on material contribution to lifetime
• Identify accepted degradation mechanisms by
  material
• Identify testing methods to address mechanisms
• By focusing on material, longevity protocols are
  independent of application.
• Application developer values protocol based on
  applicability of failure mode to application

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Materials Durability Matrix

• Test Matrix underway
• For which materials are mechanisms failure/mode
  known?
• What can be accomplished with single cell
  testing?
• What methods need development/standardization
• What is of value to USFCC members, industry?

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Future Test Efforts

• Single Cell Test Protocol Round 2
• Durability Round Robin
• Test Station Calibration Validation
• GDL Measurement Standardization
• Tie-in to H2 purity testing efforts

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Participation Options

• Thursday, November 4, 2004 in San Antonio, Texas,
  USA
• Single Cell Test Protocol Workshop, Fuel Cell
  Seminar
• Free Workshop
• Monthly Working Group Conference Calls
• USFCC Membership Required
• Monthly Task Force Conference Calls
• USFCC Membership Required

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Materials and Components Working Group

• Reminder
• Materials Components Single Cell Testing Task
  Force Workshop
• Fuel Cell Seminar 2004, San Antonio, Texas
• Thursday November 3rd, Noon -- 200 p.m.
• Open to Industry
• Lunch provided