PROGRES – PROduction of GRaphene coated platES for fuel cells

"The PROGRES project builds on previous Innovate UK projects and will address super light-weighting challenges for weight sensitive UAVs (and other) powertrain applications. It will aim to industrialise and upscale production graphene enabled, highly conductive and corrosion resistant polymer coatings with the potential to achieve cost savings of up to 90%.

Light-weighted stacks enable UAVs to fly higher and longer with enhanced, system operational capabilities over the incumbent battery technology. Coated plates make up ~80% of the weight of a fuel cell, but mass reduction requires innovation of the plate stack materials/coatings. Similarly, light-weighting is key in accessing automotive and portable markets. As generally accepted aerospace materials, PROGRES also aims to validate production scale processes for Ti and Al foils.

Ti represents a (first) step change in light-weighting of fuel cell stacks, but requires new supply-chains and complementary upstream/downstream production and QC processes; and the potential to scale to high-volume/low-cost production. The technical feasibility of using total-barrier protection (highly) conductive coatings will also be assessed for Aluminium to harness its superior weight/performance potential. Total-barrier properties will be key to ensuring that performance does not degrade due to the ingress of very low pH (<1) electrolytes at the surface. Extended operational life will be benchmarked, with minimal degradation and acceptable running times \>800hrs. A successful project outcome will establish a UK based competency within a global UAV marketplace."