GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

The following items are in scope of this topic and should lead to cost reduction and cell/stack reliability improvement. Scalability should be considered for each of the research paths to be followed in the project. The project should consider the re-use and recycling of the electrolysers and their components at their end of life. Proposals should address at least 3 of the topics below:

• Alternatives and/or novel processes should be identified, allowing improved conduction coatings with impact on Platinum group metals (PGM) content. Catalysts should be reduced in water electrolysers, since they are both very expensive and CRMs;
• Exploration of new surface coating technologies and advanced manufacturing processes (e.g., 3D printing) for more efficient mass production, which can allow higher current density and process efficiency;
• Improvement of manufacturing throughput, feature control, and scale for electrolyser bipolar plates to be coupled with a reduction of the processing cost through cost-effective and mass production-friendly processing techniques, including forming, punching, cleaning, coating and other processes;
• Reduction of the manufacturing steps and transportation costs required to fabricate porous transport layers/gas diffusion layers;
• Improvement of the level of automation of the cell stacks assembly thanks to the development of robotics tooling and automated inspection;
• Test and development of scalable predictive maintenance devices which can greatly reduce the O&M costs of the electrolyser stack;
• Include process design to leverage the recyclability of the materials at the end of life and the utilisation of recycled materials in novel manufacturing on a circularity approach.