Development and optimisation of reliable and versatile PEMFC stacks for high power range applications

Advances in the PEMFC stacks technology are needed to support deployment of Fuel Cell heavy-duty transports. Cost-competitive and reliable integration require stack solutions particularly tailored for sustained operation at high stack-power. Proposals should focus on applicability of their developments in the field of land transport, primarily road, while considering possible spill over benefits for maritime, rail and aviation

Proposals should address innovative concepts, designs, methods and/or operating-strategies. Related investigations may tackle cell and stack levels, including flow-fields, bipolar plates or assembling features (e.g. mechanical aspect), as well as the range, the distribution or the management of the operational conditions (e.g. thermal or reactant gases feeding aspects). The overall process should build on comprehension of the currently proven PEMFC technology and further development at stack level targeting optimised operation for high efficiency and extended durability at high stack power density. For the range of power envisioned, increasing efficiency would enhance the overall system with respect to volume savings for fuel storage.

Innovation on MEA is out of scope of this topic. Work should therefore be conducted on validated components, including commercialised or developed in other actions. Availability of baseline features on MEA should be a prerequisite: for commercial or promising R&D products, agreement of companies or developers to provide needed parameters and to allow deep analysis as relevant for reaching expected outcomes is needed. Maximum total loading should be 0.5 mg PGM/cm².

Optimisation should be supported by advanced experimental and simulation tools to analyse the impact of stacks features on their functional properties (e.g. performance level and limitations, voltage losses, electrochemical characteristics) regarding application requirements and system specifications. Local insights, especially meaningful for the large active area considered, should be assessed for different zones, between cells and across interfaces by in- and ex-situ characterisations and by simulations using cell- and stack-design based models. A better specific understanding of global and local mechanisms, occurring in cells and stacks operated at high power and affecting both performance and degradation, should be acquired thanks to spatially distributed analyses. Data will be used to clarify the influence of components, design, assembly or working features (e.g. load profiles, conditions and events). Developed experimental, monitoring or model-based approaches should be exploited to promote expected innovations and advances on comprehensive operating strategy of the PEMFC and on design of the cell unit or of the overall stack.

Compliance with the targeted KPIs, assessment of progress and final validation should be examined at stack scale (minimum 5 kW, or 10-cell-stack and scale-1 cell surface) under relevant conditions representative of actual use, taking into account system requirements for the targeted applications. Validated agreed protocols (including accelerated testing) should be applied to confirm and quantify improvements in areal power density, stack or system efficiency and lifetime. These protocols will be developed within the project if needed or selected in agreement with previous initiatives and in cooperation with relevant applicative roadmaps.

Focusing the development on advanced research work while monitoring progress and validating final optimisation at representative scale under protocols and conditions relevant for system level, is expected to achieve expected outcomes with efficient innovative solutions applicable for short-term integration.

Proposals should, where relevant, build on previous/on-going FHC JU projects[[https://www.clean-hydrogen.europa.eu/projects-repository_en]] addressing transport and similar activities, aligning particularly with: ID-FAST, IMMORTAL or MORELife regarding degradation understanding or ageing protocols; INSPIRE, DOLPHIN for developments on stacks; STaSHH for outcomes related to stack integration.

Proposals should demonstrate how the results would benefit to the whole industry, while protecting intellectual property for the involved partners. With this in mind, proposals should include public deliverables and describe how project data will be made available to the large public.

Consortia should include at least one partner in the consortium for the exploitation of the project results and willingness to exploit the results should be demonstrated. It is encouraged to include actors from research and industry, the latter being interested in PEMFC stacks or system deployment.

Activities developing test protocols and procedures for the performance and durability assessment of electrolysers and fuel cell components proposals should foresee a collaboration mechanism with JRC (see section 2.2.4.3 "Collaboration with JRC"), in order to support EU-wide harmonisation. Test activities should adopt the already published EU harmonised testing protocols[[https://www.clean-hydrogen.europa.eu/knowledge-management/collaboration-jrc-0_en]] to benchmark performance and quantify progress at programme level.

Activities are expected to start at TRL 3 and achieve TRL 5 by the end of the project.

The conditions related to this topic are provided in the chapter 2.2.3.2 of the Clean Hydrogen JU 2022 Annual Work Plan and in the General Annexes to the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2021–2022 which apply mutatis mutandis.