H100 Odorisation Project

The UK currently has an exceptionally safe gas distribution system thanks to its extremely effective odorant. This odorant which are injected into the gas system allows people to easily detect gas leaks through sense of smell, allowing them to take action before potentially dangerous situations occur. This work investigated the impact of changing gas to hydrogen and whether odorants currently used in the gas network would still be effective. An effective odorant needs to track with the carrier gas so that the smell of the odorant is present only when the gas is present and must also be detectable at low gas concentrations.

The project was commissioned to test whether the odorants used for natural gas would be as effective, in the same concentrations, when used with hydrogen.

Kiwa Gastec designed and built a test environment, making several small-scale leaks of hydrogen with various odorants and comparing them directly with results with small scale leaks with natural gas and the same odorants. Due to the nature of the testing, the concentration of gas and the size of the leak required highly precise measurement using two gas chromatographs. Human volunteers were used to sniff test gas taken from the test environment and to ensure that the odorant could be detected.

The odorisation investigation confirmed that the odorants currently used by GNDOs in natural gas network work in exactly the same way when deployed with hydrogen. The odorants are effective with hydrogen and track with hydrogen just as they do natural gas.

• Design, procurement and build of test environment
• Managed and conducted testing process