We have a lab of batteries and fuel cell where we usually work with fuels other than hydrogen like formic acid/ methanol/ NaBH4/etc. A new student has purchased a hydrogen cylinder to use it as fuel in PEMFC. Is it safe to use hydrogen cylinder in laboratory as a fuel? I mean is there any chance of explosion/fire in fuel cell during H2/O2 reaction or can there be any source of ignition/spark inside fuel cell during fuel cell testing as we dont have any automatic shut down system for hydrogen.
Mushtaq provides a specific set of safety measures for working with Hydrogen.
To answer your question - "can there be any explosion/fire in fuel cell" - then it will very much will be determined by your setup. Do you have more specific details?
The only other suggestions I would have is to check all the tubing and connections for leaks, place a hydrogen sensor just above the fuel cell, and to add a temperature sensor (ideally with a configurable alarm) to monitor the internal temperature.
Thanks to all ... well, after discussion with some other researchers also, now I believe that there is no such risk in PEM assembly if we use hydrogen... just we need to make sure that the outlets of MEA are vented outside or to as safe location and there is no leakage of hydrogen in the inlet tubes... so we have installed hydrogen detector which may enable us to detect the leakage... and now we are venting the outlets properly to safe location.
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