Representative Hydrogen Sampling at Hydrogen Refuelling Stations: Interplay of Sampling Strategy and Station Parameters

Taking spot samples at hydrogen refuelling stations (HRSs) and performing offline analysis in laboratories is currently the only way to achieve hydrogen fuel compliance at HRS (meet the ISO 14687:2025 standard or EN 17124:2022 in Europe). Currently, different sampling strategies are defined in ISO 19880-9:2024 (Annex A–C) and implemented in different parts of the world (EU, Japan, USA). The differences in conducting the sampling potentially influence the hydrogen samples; therefore, there is a need to compare the different sampling strategies. Comparative sampling studies are required to evaluate the equivalence of sampling methodologies and support the standardisation of hydrogen fuel sampling. This study provides a systematic comparison of five European sampling systems with different sampling strategies under real and defined HRS operation conditions. The results show that the issue of representative sampling is more complex than initially assumed and that there is an interdependence of sampling device and HRS configuration, respectively.