The Slovenian start-up ReCatalyst and the German start-up ionysis have been successfully selected for funding under the prestigious European Innovation Council (EIC) Transition project under the acronym ENABLER with a funding volume of ∼2.5 M €.
Project Name
Tech and business validation towards market readiness of high-performance PFSA-free intermetallic Pt-alloy membrane electrode assemblies for PEMFCs: Enabling next-gen hydrogen-based transport
Project Number
Grant agreement ID: 101112991
Project Time Frame
01.06.2023 – 30.11.2025
Project Description and Objectives
ENABLER’s final objectives are to assemble, demonstrate and test a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) short stack – functional energy generation device – with reduced platinum content (0.3 mgPt/cm2) and free of perfluorinated sulfonic acid (PFSA) compounds matching the performance of the current state-of-the-art PFSA-containing PEMFCs and, in parallel, to ensure market readiness for the technologies.
The project will lay the foundation for more widespread exploitation of hydrogen power by enabling more efficient use of Pt as a critical raw material, providing improved performance and durability with advanced intermetallic Pt-alloy catalysts materials; achieving higher operating temperatures of PEMFCs (105 °C) by replacing conventional PFSA ionomers and membranes with novel hydrocarbon (HC) materials and, consequently removing the toxic perfluorinated compounds out of PEMFC manufacturing, resulting in positive effect on the economy and society. Thus, ENABLER’s long-term objective is to improve the commercial viability of PEMFC and ramp up its mass use to decarbonize transport and energy sectors.
ENABLER will reach the tech objectives by designing a set of interrelated activities: (i) catalyst finetuning to ensure compatibility with the HC materials (ii) CCM production processes finetuning and CCM fabrication with advanced catalyst, HC membranes and ionomers integrated (iii) fabrication and validation of single cells and short stack. Business objectives will be achieved through market validation activities, performance of techno-economic and investment analysis as well as business plan creation and IPR management activities.
The ENABLER consortium is designed to create a non-existing PFSA-free European value-chain requiring a minimum of critical resources – with ReCatalyst being responsible for catalyst, ionysis – CCM fabrication and EKPO – PEMFC technology. All partners will work on market readiness to ensure the value chain sustainability in the future.
Partners
Project funding
The total project budget is € 2 495 900,00.