Using Hydrogen Safety Best Practices and Learning From Safety Events

A best practice is a technique or methodology that has reliably led to a desired result. A wealth of experience regarding the safe use and handling of hydrogen exists as a result of an extensive history in a wide variety of industrial and aerospace settings. Hydrogen Safety Best Practices (www.h2bestpractices.org) captures this vast knowledge base and makes it publicly available to those working with hydrogen and related systems, including those just starting to work with hydrogen. This online manual is organized under a number of hierarchical technical content categories. References, including publications and other online links, that deal with the safety aspects of hydrogen are compiled for easy access. This paper discusses the development of Hydrogen Safety Best Practices as a safety knowledge tool, the nature of its technical content, and the steps taken to enhance its value and usefulness. Specific safety event examples are provided to illustrate the link between technical content in the online best practices manual and a companion safety knowledge tool, Hydrogen Incident Reporting and Lessons Learned (www.h2incidents.org), which encourages the sharing of lessons learned and other safety event information.