The objectives of this report are: (1) Develop a low cost, low power, durable, and reliable hydrogen safety sensor for a wide range of vehicle and infrastructure applications
(2) Continually advance test prototypes guided by materials selection, sensor design, electrochemical R&
D investigation, fabrication, and rigorous life testing
(3) Disseminate packaged sensor prototypes and control systems to DOE Laboratories and commercial parties interested in testing and fielding advanced prototypes for cross-validation
(4) Evaluate manufacturing approaches for commercialization
and (5) Engage an industrial partner and execute technology transfer. Recent developments in the search for sustainable and renewable energy coupled with the advancements in fuel cell powered vehicles (FCVs) have augmented the demand for hydrogen safety sensors. There are several sensor technologies that have been developed to detect hydrogen, including deployed systems to detect leaks in manned space systems and hydrogen safety sensors for laboratory and industrial usage. Among the several sensing methods electrochemical devices that utilize high temperature-based ceramic electrolytes are largely unaffected by changes in humidity and are more resilient to electrode or electrolyte poisoning. The desired sensing technique should meet a detection threshold of 1% (10,000 ppm) H{sub 2} and response time of {approx_equal}1 min, which is a target for infrastructure and vehicular uses. Further, a review of electrochemical hydrogen sensors by Korotcenkov et.al and the report by Glass et.al suggest the need for inexpensive, low power, and compact sensors with long-term stability, minimal cross-sensitivity, and fast response. This view has been largely validated and supported by the fuel cell and hydrogen infrastructure industries by the NREL/DOE Hydrogen Sensor Workshop held on June 8, 2011. Many of the issues preventing widespread adoption of best-available hydrogen sensing technologies available today outside of cost, derive from excessive false positives and false negatives arising from signal drift and unstable sensor baseline
both of these problems necessitate the need for unacceptable frequent calibration.