Scale-up and Optimisation of Manufacturing processes for Electrolyser materials, Cells or Stacks

Optimisation and upscaling of manufacturing processes is required to increase production yields and improve cost-effectiveness. At the same time, new materials, components, and stack designs for improved efficiencies and reduced environmental impact must be produced in sufficient quantities to meet the growing needs of clean hydrogen production facilities.

Scope 

• The scope of this topic is the development and demonstration of manufacturing processes which are suitable for scale-up and which can contribute to meeting predicted annual clean hydrogen production requirements. Considering manufacturing scale-up of new materials, the proposal should provide sufficient information to show that these materials have been proven to work at an appropriate scale.

Expected Outcomes

• Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following outcomes:
  • Maintain European leadership in electrolyser production and strengthen the European value chain through the ability to deliver high-quality stacks;
  • Employ sustainable-by-design and/or design for recycling methods to improve circularity;
  • Minimise the life-cycle impact of materials, component, or electrolyser manufacture through waste (e.g scrap or consumables);
  • Increase production rates whilst reducing manufacturing costs for materials, components or stacks through manufacturing process development, considering learnings from other industrial sectors such as fuel cells, batteries, etc;
  • Contribute to CAPEX reductions of water electrolysis systems through economies of scale and reduced waste;
  • Contribute to creating a viable business case for clean hydrogen production and use, through delivery of more affordable, higher-quality systems with improved lifetimes;
  • Improve the cost-effectiveness, efficiency, reliability, quantity and quality of clean hydrogen production through improved manufacturing processes and scale-up of material, component, or stack production or the component or stack active area;
  • Contribute to the creation of high-value manufacturing and supply chain jobs.

Eligible Projects

• Proposals should develop solutions to address material and manufacturing bottlenecks including component supply, manufacturing processes, and end-of-line testing. Technologies to be developed should lead to increased manufacturing throughput and/or yield. Research and Development (R&D) activities should be included, for example, design for manufacture, additive manufacture, improved handling methods, automation and in-line quality control. The developed technologies may be capable of processing several types of material or be used for the manufacture of more than one type of electrolyser system.
• Proposals should include relevant baseline information relating to techno-economics and the environmental/life cycle impacts of the current state of the art for the processes being considered. They should also provide a quantified description of the expected improvements.
• Proposals should include validation of the developed technologies in an industrial environment on an OEM-relevant stack, i.e. TRL5/6 and MRL5 depending on the electrolyser technology and on the current TRL/MRL of the process. Proposals should state the capacity of their demonstrator and justify the way in which the equipment and stack size used for validation demonstrates manufacturing capacity sufficient for production of sufficient electrolyser manufacturing capacity to allow Europe to meet its hydrogen production targets using high-quality components.
• Validation consists of demonstration of increased throughput or yield of the material, component, or stack without reduction in quality. For example, in-line inspection may increase the number of flaws detected so a link could be made between defect type/severity and its impact on quality to determine critical defect types.
• The project outputs should include validation of increased manufacturing capability in a relevant environment and include life-cycle analysis, waste management/recycling potential and a techno-economic report describing the expected throughputs, yields, defect rate and costs when implemented in a manufacturing facility.

For more information, visit European Commission.