THOR aims at developing a cost-effective thermoplastic composite pressure vessel for hydrogen storage both for vehicle and for transportation applications. Thermoplastics appear as a promising solution to the challenges faced by conventional tanks in terms of compatibility with hydrogen service and with mass automotive market requirements. The use of thermoplastic materials, advanced numerical modeling techniques and innovative manufacturing processes will boost the performance, improve safety, enable optimized tank geometry and weight (reduction of 10%) and reduce the cost for mass production (400€/kg of H2 stored for 30 000 tanks/year). A series of tests extracted from demanding automotive standards will validate all the requirements and demonstrate that thermoplastic tanks outperform thermoset ones. The consortium is representative of the hydrogen supply chain, from technology developer to manufacturer and end-user enhancing market uptake: a disruptive technology provider with successful commercial experience of thermoplastic tanks (COVESS), an ambitious Tier One supplier targeting a wide market introduction towards all OEMs (FAURECIA), an industrial gas expert with a long history related to hydrogen and a complementary end-user of tanks for hydrogen supply and refueling station operations (AIR LIQUIDE). This core industrial team is limited in purpose to avoid possible future commercial conflicts of interests and backed up with top research expertise to address all the identified challenges: an innovation center for material research with important tank scale testing capacity (CSM), a technology center in the fields of composite materials, manufacturing, automation, and testing (SIRRIS), academic teams with strong experience of composite materials and non-destructive testing (NTNU) and of thermo-mechanical materials behavior under fire aggression (CNRS) and a technical center with an innovative recycling technology for thermoplastic composites (CETIM-CERMAT).

The ambition of INSTABAT is to monitor in operando key parameters of a Li-ion battery cell, in order to provide higher accuracy States of Charge, Health, Power, Energy and Safety (SoX) cell indicators, and thus allowing to improve the safety and the Quality, Reliability and Life (QRL) of batteries. To achieve this goal, INSTABAT will develop a proof of concept of smart sensing technologies and functionalities, integrated into a battery cell and capable of: • performing reliable in operando monitoring (time- and space-resolved) of key parameters (temperature and heat flow; pressure; strain; Li+ concentration and distribution; CO2 concentration; “absolute” impedance, potential and polarization) by means of: (i) four embedded physical sensors (optical fibers with Fiber Bragg Grating and luminescence probes, reference electrode and photo-acoustic gas sensor), (ii) two virtual sensors (based on electro-chemical and thermal reduced models), • correlating the evolution of these parameters with the physico-chemical degradation phenomena occurring at the heart of the battery cell, • improving the battery functional performance and safety, thanks to enhanced BMS algorithms providing in real-time higher accuracy SoX cell indicators (taking the measured and estimated parameters into consideration). Main results will be: (1) proof of concept of multi-sensor platform (cell prototype equipped with physical/virtual sensors, and associated BMS algorithms providing SoX cell indicators in real-time); (2) demonstration of higher accuracy for SoX cell indicators; (3) demonstration of improvement of cell functional performance and safety through two use cases for EV applications; (4) techno-economic feasibility study (manufacturability, adaptability to other cell technologies...). INSTABAT smart cells will open new horizons to improve cell use and performances (e.g. by reducing ageing, allowing the decrease of safety margins, triggering self-healing, facilitating second life, etc.).

There is a strong demand from EU to decarbonise freight transport. RHeaDHy will contribute to this by developing high-performance hydrogen (H2) refuelling stations. RHeaDHy aims at fully implement and validate new refuelling protocols that will allow to refuel 100kg H2 trucks in 1Omin. Partners will design and assembly a new very high flow refuelling line for 700bar H2 truck. To do so, they will develop missing key components needed to reach the mean flow target of 170g/s (300g/s at peak). The unique RHeaDHy comprehensive approach will guaranty an optimal design of components and refuelling line by gathering in the consortium best-in-class partners manufacturing all the components downstream high-pressure refuelling station storage to vehicle storage. This approach will allow to choose the optimal trade-off on constrains repartition among components and to fully consider vision of real vehicle constrains. New implemented refuelling protocols are based on previous work (PRHYDE) and standardization committee work, and involve calculation of refuelling coefficients specific to vehicle storage that need to be derived from hundreds of simulations. This extensive simulation work will be performed on refuelling model validated in previous European projects. To dedicate at least 1.5 years to an extensive test campaign, components and refuelling line design, manufacturing and assembly will be achieved within 2 years. 2 refuelling stations will be installed in France and Germany within the first 2.5 years. 2 truck storage test systems will be used to test and validate refuelling protocols on full scale storage. This work will allow to provide feedback from the field to significantly contribute to the establishment of standards on refuelling interface components and protocols. RHeaDHy will then represent a significant step forward to unlock H2 truck market by allowing wide and performant refuelling station network based on European alternative fuel infrastructures ambition.

Current PEMFC stack technologies for automotive applications show limitations in performance, durability and production cost which are primary challenges to reach mass production and fuel cell commercialization. It is obvious that filling the gap between present State Of the Art performances and expected targets will not be possible by an incremental evolution of the present PEMFC technology as deployed today in first commercial cars. Thus, it is necessary to identify, develop and validate a more innovative, disruptive approach including new materials and processes to have a chance to reach these ambitious challenges. In this perspective, the DOLPHIN project is exploring an unconventional, highly innovative route towards a newly designed cell architecture featuring a Dual-Core Single Repeat Unit (DC-SRU). Thanks to smart approaches in the fields of ‘Process Integration’, ‘Interfaces Quality’ and ‘Materials Efficiency’, DOLPHIN will deliver a light-weight & compact fuel cell and stack architecture with low (mass/charge) transport resistances inside the fuel cell core. Mechanically strong and corrosion resistant structures with redesigned and more coherent cell-internal interfaces will delay the activation of major ageing mechanisms and failures occurrence hence increasing system reliability to a level compatible with automotive durability targets. Finally, by triggering an original concept relying on two integrated multi-functional cores and two architectures (w/o GDM) of increasing level of disruptiveness, DOLPHIN will finally deliver a reinvented process scheme with projected stack production costs less than 20 €/kW. DOLPHIN will in that sense address drastic fuel cell stack requirements for the automotive industry and beyond. It consists in another step forward toward the large-scale deployment of environmentally friendly vehicles, while also participating to the increase in European competitiveness, industrialisation and self-sufficiency in energy.