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A new hydrogen analyzer using a magnetic sector mass spectrometer (MS) has been developed to perform continuous analysis of hydrogen gas concentrations in exhaust gas. This method is insensitive to substances other than hydrogen gas ions and so is not easily affected by the presence of other molecules. In addition, this analyzer has a fast response compared to conventional hydrogen analyzers, which employ other measurement principles. The T90 response time is about 1 second. The minimum sensitivity is few tens of ppm. Because of these characteristics, the sector MS method has significant potential for analyzing hydrogen concentrations in exhaust gas continuously. In this study, the authors performed continuous emissions measurement of several kinds of gasoline engine vehicle in a chassis test cell using the hydrogen gas analyzer in combination with other gas analyzers.

Fuel cell is one of the promising candidates for low emission and high efficiency power plant for the next generation vehicles. Currently, general discussions are focused on from where and how to supply hydrogen to the fuel cell stack in a vehicle. Two major concepts are presented; (1) storing pure hydrogen on-board and (2) use of hydrocarbon as a fuel in combination with on-board fuel reformer system to extract hydrogen. Although the reformer idea seems to be rather complicated than the pure hydrogen, the fuel reformer system is very much demanded, due to the energy density of liquid fossil fuel and availability of fuel supply infrastructure. In the development of the fuel reformer system, gas composition measurements are required to achieve (1) efficient hydrogen extraction, (2) low carbon monoxide concentration to protect PEM stack, and (3) low emission.

Continuous measurement of dilute exhaust gas from the CVS system, which provides gas concentrations proportional to the mass of emissions, is widely used for modal mass analysis of exhaust emission. Recently, exhaust gas flow rate measurement devices have become commercially available. Cost-effective raw exhaust modal mass analysis will be feasible with a combination of the new exhaust gas flow meters and fast response gas analyzers. In this paper, the benefits of raw exhaust modal mass measurement and the impacts of response time for the gas analyzer on the accuracy of exhaust mass calculations are discussed. Gas analyzer system with enhanced speed of response has been developed by hardware modification applied to the existing conventional bench system. De-convolution or inverse digital filter techniques that compensate the delay in the exhaust sampling system and the gas analyzer are described with comparisons to the hardware modifications.

In response to the appearance of formal regulations, CFR part 1065 subpart J, a new in-use emission measurement system was developed, the OBS 2000. The OBS 2200 uses partial-vacuum analyzers. The heated flame ionization detector (HFID), heated chemiluminescence detector (HCLD) and heated non-dispersive infrared analyzer (HNDIR) are all upstream of the sample pump. This design decreases the response time of the analyzers, lowers power consumption and minimizes the overall dimensions of the system by avoiding the use of a heated sample pump. The size of the heated zones is also minimized to reduce power usage. Typical power consumption of analyzer unit is less than 500 W. The overall dimension of the main unit is 350mm (W) × 330mm (H) × 500mm (D). Analyzer linearity checks as required by new regulations [1] for all available ranges will be presented along with cut point accuracies relative to full scale and percentage of point.