VIII.10  Hydrogen Safety Panel

The Hydrogen Safety Panel was tasked with conducting work under the project “Hydrogen Safety Panel Review of Department of Energy’s Fuel Cell Projects,” through memorandum purchase order DCO-0-40618-01 with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory using American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding.  Panel members reviewed project safety plans, conducted safety review site visits for selected projects, and prepared safety evaluation reports for the sites visited that included safety recommendations for the project teams.

Quenching limits of hydrogen diffusion flames on small burners were observed. Four burner types,with diameters as small as 8 m, were considered: pinhole burners, curved-wall pinhole burners, tubeburners, and leaky fittings. In terms of mass flow rate, hydrogen had a lower quenching limit and a higherblowoff limit than either methane or propane. Hydrogen flames at their quenching limits were the weakest

Sodium chloride and four or five other particulate materials have been used successfully as fire suppression agents for specific combustible metal fires. The certification testing and National Fire Protection Association recommendations for using these suppression agents are summarized here. The sodium chloride based agent and ordinary sand have also been used in some sodium hydride fires, and in a sodium hydride fire test series.