(143c) Strategies to Safely Manage the New Hydrogen Technology

With the advent of hydrogen as a future clean fuel and energy carrier due to its lower CO2 emissions, it imperative that we fully understand and manage the risks associated with hydrogen technology to ensure its safe implementation. While many of the historical incidents involving hydrogen have similarities to other fossil fuels, it is important to understand hydrogen’s unique properties and associated hazards. Hydrogen can be stored and transported as a compressed gas, however, due to its comparatively small energy content per unit volume as a gas, it is necessary in some instances to liquefy hydrogen.

Given the complex conditions in which hydrogen can be used and stored, it is important to understand all the possible nuisances of this fuel in order to define basic safety specifications and avoid possible pitfalls. This is especially true given the very high reactivity of hydrogen, its extensive flammability range, extremely low ignition energy, and its ease of transitioning to detonations as compared to other traditional hydrocarbon fuel gases. This paper summarizes the critical combustion parameters associated with hydrogen and discusses its unique properties when it comes to evaluating unintentional releases. Novel experimental results will be shown to demonstrate such aspects. It will also provide critical safety strategies that will help reduce the likelihood and consequences of unintended catastrophic events, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that hydrogen is used safely and that certain pitfalls are avoided due to the unique properties of the fuel.