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AIChE launches the Center for Hydrogen Safety

| By Mary Bailey

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE; www.aiche.org) announced that it has launched the Center for Hydrogen Safety to promote the safe handling and use of hydrogen across industrial and consumer applications in the global energy transition.

The Center for Hydrogen Safety (www.aiche.org/CHS) will provide international partner organizations with innovative tools and resources that address both traditional uses of hydrogen and hydrogen’s growing use as a fuel source around the globe. The new Center builds upon the technical expertise embodied by AIChE, its Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS), and partnering organizations — whose members and stakeholders have innovated and documented industrial safety best-practices and techniques over many decades of practice and research.

The Center for Hydrogen Safety will receive its official launch on Tuesday, April 2, during the 2019 AIChE Spring Meeting and Global Congress Process Safety in New Orleans, Louisiana.

“This global, nonprofit Center identifies and enables information sharing on the safe use of hydrogen — as a sustainable energy carrier, in commercial and industrial applications, and in hydrogen and fuel cell technologies,” says Nick Barilo, Director of the Center. “It will facilitate access to hydrogen safety experts; develop comprehensive safety guidance, outreach and education materials; and provide a forum to partner on world-wide technical solutions.”

AIChE is working to transition highly successful hydrogen safety resources developed at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to the Center. AIChE is also forming strategic partnerships with other coordinating groups on the forefront of the hydrogen energy transition, such as the California Fuel Cell Partnership.

Various industries and organizations, some with long-standing experience in hydrogen, have joined the Center to demonstrate their support for hydrogen safety, says Barilo. Organizations that join the Center prior to the launch event will be recognized as founding members. The Center’s founding members to date include Air Liquide, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., Alakai Technologies, Deutsche Gesellschaft für chemisches Apparatewesen, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Protium Innovations LLC, Sandia National Laboratories, Shell Oil Company, the Society for Chemical Engineers Japan, and Washington State University.