German Aerospace Center
Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics
DLR is the Federal Republic of Germany’s research centre for aeronautics and space. We conduct research and development activities in the fields of aeronautics, space, energy, transport, security and digitalisation.
Climate, mobility and technology are changing globally. DLR uses the expertise of its 55 research institutes and facilities to develop solutions to these challenges. The DLR Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics conducts research in the field of efficient and resource-saving energy storage and next-generation energy conversion technologies. Due to almost 40 years of research activity on the development, testing as well as system integration of fuel cells, a wide range of expertise is available at the DLR Institute.
IRD Fuel Cells
IRD is a Danish-based multinational company, devoted to the production of components for fuel cells and water electrolyzers. Established in 1996, with more than 25 years of experience, IRD is a key player in the market for production of MEAs for WE and FC applications, electrocatalyst development and up-scaling of electrochemical processes.
Thanks to its consolidated know-how, IRD can today offer 3, 5 or 7-layer MEAs with state-of-the-art power density and durability, produced according to the customer’s design with flexible choice of components tuned to the specific application.
Imerys Graphite & Carbon
Imerys is a world leader in mineral-based specialties, offering high value-added solutions to many different industries, ranging from process manufacturing to consumer goods. Our value-added solutions are formulated to meet the technical specifications of each customer and contribute to the performance of a multitude of products.
Imerys Graphite & Carbon has a strong tradition in carbon manufacturing, with its first manufacturing operation founded in 1908. Today, Imerys Graphite & Carbon facilities produce and market a large variety of synthetic and natural graphite powders, conductive carbon blacks and water-based dispersions of consistently high quality well suited for a variety of fuel cell technologies.
CEA-Liten
CEA-Liten is a major European research institute and a driving force behind the development of the sustainable energy technologies of the future. The institute is spearheading the EU’s efforts to limit dependency on fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in three key areas: renewable energy, energy efficiency/storage and development of materials.
CEA-Liten is involved in several aspects of the PEMTASTIC project, which aims to support the development of MEAs for heavy-duty transportation application by improving their description and understanding. In particular, CEA-Liten will carry out durability tests and nanostructural characterisations of materials and components as well as electrochemical characterisations at the beginning and end of test to quantify the respective impact of degradation mechanisms on the evolution of performance.
Chemours
Chemours is a different kind of chemistry company committed to creating a better world through the power of our chemistry. We are driven by performance and purpose to create sustainable innovation that helps solve the planet’s biggest challenges and makes a meaningful difference in the lives of people worldwide. Our advance performance materials power products we use every day to live better, from advanced technologies vital to the energy transition to the next generation of sustainable innovations, and ultimately meet our world’s climate goals. The greener the focus on sustainability globally, the greater the need for our ion exchange materials.
You can count on Nafion™ membranes and dispersions to meet your growing demands. Chemours operates the entire supply chain at scale from monomer to polymer to membrane and dispersions.
We are committed to staying on the cutting edge — through agile and fearless innovation and aggressive partnerships — to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges and advance a cleaner, more capable society.
Achieving Clean Energy Production with Nafion™ Membranes (chemours.com)
Heraeus Deutschland GmbH & Co KG
Heraeus Precious Metals is globally leading in the precious metals industry. By combining trading, innovative products and recycling, Heraeus offers its customers the industry’s most comprehensive array of services for the entire precious metals lifecycle.
Heraeus has been committed to precious metals for more than 160 years. Specializing in chemical process catalysts, a comprehensive line of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts is offered. Utilizing the profound expertise in precious metal catalysts, Heraeus provides electrocatalysts for PEM electrolyzers and PEM fuel cells. The materials are developed for various applications and needs and are tested on cell level internally. Additionally, a service in precious metals price management as well as recycling of the precious metals waste is part of Heraeus core businesses.
Within the PEMTASTIC project Heraeus Precious Metals takes part in the field of catalyst development. Together with the PEMTASTIC partners, novel catalyst materials are developed, that fulfill the challenging requirements that come with the heavy duty sector. With the long ranging experience in precious metal catalyst manufacturing, Heraeus is taking care of the catalyst design and the transfer of lab scale material synthesis to a production scale.
Symbio
Symbio, a Faurecia & Michelin joint venture, is a leading innovative partner for mobility pioneers, with more than 30 years of experience and 6 million kilometers driven. A world reference in hydrogen fuel cell systems, Symbio combines industrial leadership and innovation excellence with entrepreneurial agility to deliver zero-emission mobility. Whether on-road or off-road, from trucks, vans, buses to logistics equipment or passenger vehicles, its wide range of compact StackPack fuel cell systems meet all requirements for power, durability and range. Symbio is a Stellantis partner in the deployment of the world’s first hydrogen-powered light commercial vehicle program.
Symbio has nearly 600 employees committed to building a positive future, helping their customers accelerate the deployment of a clean mobility that respects our environment, our air and our health, without compromising on performance. Symbio’s H2Motive range covers all power and durability needs with single- and multi-stack systems engineered with the associated power management systems, electronic control units, cooling, air, and hydrogen loops that generate and control the electrical power.
Institute of Computational Physics
The team Electrochemical Cells and Microstructures at the Institute of Computational Physics is active in the modelling and simulation of electrochemical flow cells on three length scales, that is, the electrochemical double layer, mesoscale models to link processes that occur on the double layer scale and the continuum representation of porous electrodes, and on cell scale models.
Applications of our electrochemical flow cell models:
- Proton exchange membrane fuel cells are being developed to power heavy-duty vehicles like trucks. We are currently addressing this topic in the European project PEMTASTIC with a combination of micro- and mesoscale MEA models.
- Redox flow batteries (RFBs) are a technology for the grid-scale energy storage of fluctuating renewable power. Aqueous organic RFBs have the advantage of low solvent cost and relatively high conductivity, and water-based electrolytes allow for safe battery operation. In the EU project SONAR we have developed a computationally efficient physics-based model of an aqueous organic RFB. The model is suitable for application in computational high-throughput screening to identify new active materials.
- The use of flow cells for the electro-organic synthesis will allow to produce fine chemicals or pharmaceuticals by use of renewable energy.
The team participates in the European project MiEl for microprocess engineering for electrosynthesis to work out new synthesis concepts for pharmaceutical/ fine chemical industry.
https://www.zhaw.ch/en/engineering/institutes-centres/icp-institute-of-computational-physics/
