Hydrogen is a key energy vector in a future decarbonised economy. Large-scale application in numerous sectors, such as transport, iron & steel plants, and the chemical industry, requires efficient and sustainable production routes of green hydrogen. Currently all electrolyser technologies are still challenged by high CAPEX and OPEX.
The goal of the NOAH2 project is to provide a sustainable, cost-competitive, flexible, and durable stack technology for hydrogen production at temperatures < 700°C by developing innovative electrodes, cell, and stack designs. NOAH2 will significantly boost electrolysis
performance and durability of cells & stacks beyond State-of-the-Art (SoA), while reducing critical raw materials (CRM) and cost of manufacturing using environmentally friendly and wellestablished large scale production routes for solid oxide technology.
Specific technical objectives for NOAH2 are to:
1. Reduce the costs of SOEL stacks by 50% compared to SoA through (i) use of metallic instead of ceramic supporting components, (ii) integration of support layer/interconnect functionalities into one single layer, (iii) reduction of the stack volume by at least 20% by
developing a metal based monolithic structure,
2. Increase hydrogen production rate (current density) by 20% vs. SoA, reaching 1.2 A/cm2, through innovative electrode materials & structuring with infiltration of materials of superior electro catalytic activity at temperatures below 700 oC,
3. Demonstrate commercially viable durability with degradation rates below ~0.75%/1000 h at stack level, and
4. Reach SOEL operation in less than 6 h from cold state and less than 240 s from hot state to enable fast dynamic operating modes, facilitated by the compact, metal based monolithic stack architecture and highly active electrodes.
In addition, NOAH2 will
i. Outline a path towards commercialization in terms of projecting costs for large scale manufacture towards MW and GW scale, reaching the 2030 targets of capital expenditure (CAPEX) ~ 520 €/(kg/d) and operational expenditure (OPEX) ~45 €/(kg/d)/y,
ii. Provide a sustainability classification (life cycle analysis: LCA) with emphasis on substituting CRM,
iii. Provide an assessment of commercialization potential compared to SoA SOEL, PEM, and Alkaline electrolysers, and
iv. Identify and engage with potential industrial players for high-volume manufacture and further up-take of the project results.
NOAH2 will employ multi scale multi physic modelling to develop electrodes and monolithic stacks combined with advanced (in-situ and ex-situ) physicochemical and electrochemical characterization to understand effects of materials, architectures and operational conditions on performance and stability and to identify degradation mechanisms at cell and stack levels.
NOAH2 will move the concept from TRL level 2/3, with its clearly outlined technology formulation and first proof of concepts at small scale and sub-unit scale to TRL 4 at a stack unit level containing 125 cm2 of accumulated cell area.
