TECHNOLOGY LICENSING OPPORTUNITY: Hydrogen Contamination Detectorview on SAM.gov

This invention by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) introduces a new type of real-time hydrogen fuel contamination detector that can sense tiny amounts of harmful contaminants before they reach a fuel-cell vehicle. It works by using a special membrane that keeps itself properly hydrated using an internal water reservoir, allowing it to stay sensitive even when measuring completely dry hydrogen—a major challenge for existing sensors. Even small amounts of impurities can permanently damage a fuel-cell car's power system, and today's testing methods are slow, expensive, and often done only after problems occur. By enabling continuous, in-line monitoring at hydrogen fueling stations, this technology helps ensure that hydrogen is clean and safe, supporting the growth of a reliable and consumer-friendly hydrogen economy. The Challenge: As hydrogen becomes a mainstream clean fuel, even tiny impurities—like CO, H₂S, or excess moisture—can permanently damage the sensitive fuel-cell systems that power vehicles and equipment. Yet today, hydrogen quality is typically verified using expensive, lab-based instruments that require expert operators and provide results only after the fact. This delay means a single contaminated batch can affect many vehicles before anyone realizes there's a problem. Traditional sensor concepts have failed because they require adding moisture to the hydrogen stream, which interferes with detecting water contamination and violates emerging fuel standards. The industry needs a simple, real-time, in-line quality monitor that works with dry hydrogen and can be deployed directly at fueling stations. The Solution: The electrochemical Hydrogen Contamination Detector (HCD) is a low-cost device based on the very same materials and components that make up PEM fuel cells. It uses an ultra-low Pt-loaded sense electrode that is similar to a fuel cell electrode but hypersensitized to impurities by virtue of the greatly reduced catalyst loading. Impurities that bind to Pt catalysts inside the fuel cell and interfere with hydrogen absorption and dissociation will behave the same way to the low Pt-loaded HCD working electrode. The low loading makes the HCD even more susceptible to the effects of trace levels of high-impact impurities. The HCD can work in completely dry hydrogen because of LANL's patented internal water reservoir and wicking mechanism. It can function at much higher sampling pressures than commercial analyzers because it is constructed with off-the-shelf single cell hardware that can easily handle pressures up to 250psi. The HCD approach applies a voltage to electrochemically pump hydrogen gas through the HCD while sampling the dry hydrogen stream to be analyzed for fuel quality. If contaminants are present, the measured hydrogen pumping current will decrease. At well-defined intervals, a high voltage pulse is applied to electrochemically “clean” the ultra-low loaded Pt electrode that “resets” the HCD continuously.…