ROBUST AND RELIABLE HYDROGEN LEAK DETECTION AND WARNING SYSTEMS
The Department of Energy seeks research and development to enable viable hydrogen leak detection technologies; including the integration with communications technologies that notify a system operator when a leak occurs in large or small facilities. This work focused on improvements in sensing technology to address the safety of proposed hydrogen refueling stations, and has a general public benefit for improving the safety of many public or private spaces and worksites where the risk of gas leaks (such as carbon monoxide or other toxic gasses) poses a threat. This report discusses the development of a wireless mesh network, consisting of individually networked hydrogen sensor nodes, that will provide redundancy and reliability for quickly identifying and locating leaks and other types of facility failures (such as power loss to handling equipment). The overall objective of this Phase I SBIR is to develop a meshed sensor network to be deployed in a test facility for characterization of its reliability and to provide the instrumentation necessary to guide the regulation and requirements of a monitoring system for commercial refilling facilities. The Phase I final technical report will outline the approach taken to design and develop a meshed network of sensors. Briefly, this included collaboration with two federal research facilities to determine the ideal physical placement of nodes in regards to detecting hydrogen plumes and diffusion, and is set up to develop a simple algorithm to identify the location of potential sources of release. The partners also provided all relevant data and reports from their field trials to assist in hydrogen fueling safety system development. With this knowledge, the ideal physical placement of a large net of nodes will be used to direct engineering efforts to focus on the development of the wireless network. The prototype was designed to ensure the maximum reliability of communication between each node, and to ensure system integrity due to node failure. This network is equipped with both local (PC based) and remote (Cloud based) interfaces capable of displaying real-time relevant information. Redundancy will be provided with both local wireless and remote cellular connections, while on facility power or operating on battery backup. Federal research partners have facilitated The federal partners have also provided research grade, thin film hydrogen sensor samples to be integrated into test nodes and their performance has been compared to other commercial methods of hydrogen detection.
- Research Organization:
- SPEC Sensors, LLC
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- Contributing Organization:
- KWJ Engineering; Los Alamos National Labs, Materials Synthesis and Integrated Devices Group; TechOpp Consulting, Inc.
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0019838
- OSTI ID:
- 1638375
- Type / Phase:
- SBIR (Phase I)
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-SPEC-19838
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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