Innovative concepts from Electrodes to Stacks

The goal of this Korea-UK research initiative is to address Research theme 1 (Innovative concepts from Electrodes to stack) of the EPSRC-KETEP Call for Collaborative Research with Korea on Fuel Cell Technologies. The proposal also covers some aspects of Research theme 2 (Predictive control for performance and degradation mitigation). Hence, this research is associated with improving the lifetime and performance of polymer electrolyte fuel cells.

Within this project we will develop new corrosion resistant catalyst supports and catalyse those supports utilising a new catalysis technique. We will also examine the development of porous bipolar plates and see how we can integrate those bipolar plates and catalysts within a fuel cell. We will trial the materials in test stacks and look at the performance and longevity of these new materials. Parallel to this work, we will use state of the art x-ray tomography and other imaging techniques to assess the performance of the materials under real operating conditions. Information from these tests will allow us to develop a methodological framework to simulate the performance of the fuel cells. This framework will then be used to build more efficient control strategies for our higher performance fuel cell systems.

We will also build a strong and long-lasting collaborative framework between Korea and the UK for both academic research and commercial trade. The project will benefit from the complementary strengths of the Korean and UK PEFC programmes, and represents a significant international activity in fuel cell research that includes a focus on the challenging issues of cost reduction and performance enhancement. The project will have particularly high impact and added value due to a strong personnel exchange programme with researchers spending several months in each other's labs; highly relevant industrial collaboration; and links with the H2FC Supergen. We have strong support from industrial companies in both the UK and Korea who will support our goals of developing new catalysts for fuel cells (Amalyst - UK, and RTX Corporation - Korea), new corrosion resistant porous bipolar plates (NPL-UK; Hyundai Hysco and Hankook tire (Korea)), and fuel cell and system integrators (Arcola Energy and Intelligent Energy (UK)).

What impact will our work have?
Networking outputs of programme
* Six UK-Korea meetings each with two week PI/coI involvement at collaborators lab and companies
* Eighteen one month research placements for our RAs in collaborators country at research institute
* Two Workshops highlighting progress in research
* Three presentations at H2FC supergen and a yearly report to H2FC and KETEP

Physical outputs of program
* Develop corrosion resistant catalyst supports
* Catalyse corrosion resistant catalyst supports using an innovative approach
* Develop metal based, corrosion resistant gas transport layers and porous bipolar plates
* Produce a fuel cell which embodies all of these components.

Knowledge based outputs of the programme
* Examine operating fuel cells using high resolution x-ray tomographic techniques along with a range of other imaging techniques,
* Develop a deeper understanding of how PEFCs operate under different conditions
* Improved fuel cell models and develop new control strategies
* Software frameworks for operating fuel cells under a range of different conditions.

Improvement in PEFC operational life and durability
The new materials and modelling frameworks described above and produced within the project will lead to an improvement in fuel cell operational life and hence a reduction of their whole-life costs. This will accelerate the uptake of these systems.

Knowledge transfer between industry and academia
Our work will involve significant transfer of knowledge between academia and industry and between Korea and the UK. We will leverage access to the NPL Industrial Advisory Group (see NPL LoS) and the STFC Global Challenge Network (PRS Lead) to disseminate knowledge to UK industry.

Improved cooperation between Korea and the UK on fuel cell Issues
Our approach is to synthesise a research programme which is bi-directional - in this win-win project both Korean and UK academic institutions and companies benefit by exposure to new techniques, materials and systems. This will strengthen the interactions between the two countries, especially as we have a significant component of cross-border researcher exchange in the project.

Who will benefit from our research?
* Academics as discussed in the previous section
* Fuel cell component and systems manufacturers -We have already targeted three of the premier UK based fuel cell component and system manufacturers as collaborators in this project (Amalyst, Arcola, and IE) and have associated fuel component manufacturers in Korea - Hyundai, Hankook and RTX. However, other industrial manufacturers will also be interested in our work (e.g. AAFC, Ballard, Toyota, Nissan, 3M, SGL etc)
* Policy Makers - The investigators have a track record in feeding research findings into policy, and will continue to liaise with policy makers during this project, through bodies such as the H2FC Supergen and Imperial's Energy Futures Lab.

How will we deliver impact from our research?
* Research publications - as described in Academics section
* H2FC Supergen - by communicating results to the Supergen in a yearly report; by presentations at the yearly H2FC meeting; hosting a yearly breakout session at the annual Supergen conference to highlight our new techniques and offer a tutorial session for all academics to attend.
* Collaborators - By applying our new materials and computational frameworks to their systems; by knowledge transfer when our researchers spend time at their facilities, both in the UK and Korea.
* External companies - By better understanding the issues that they are facing; by describing our results within the H2FC Supergen meetings and at individual meetings; by presentations at a workshop at the mid-point at Korea and end of the project in the UK.
* Commercialisation - We have a strong track record of commercialising fuel cell companies and generating IP - e.g. Ceres at Imperial, IE from Loughborough and the EIL (Amalyst) at UCL.