Hydrogen technology focus of new recycling consortium

BEST4Hy H2020 is the name of a project its participants describe as an international partnership to develop technologies for the recovery of critical raw materials from hydrogen technologies.

The eight Europe-based companies and institutes comprising the partnership held a web kickoff meeting Jan. 19-20. They say the work they are undertaking is “within the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research program.”

The consortium consists of Environment Park SpA (Italy), CEA Liten (France), Turin Politecnico (Italy), Hensel Recycling Gmbh (Germany), Elringklinger AG (Germany), Aktsiaselts Elcogen (Estonia), RINA Consulting SpA (Italy) and the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia).

According to the consortium, “As demand for hydrogen technology increases, ever more devices become in use and will eventually end up in the waste stream, requiring therefore to be handled in a sustainable manner. However, according to the findings of previous research initiatives, there are very few examples of viable and upscaled technologies for the recovery and recycling of critical raw materials from fuel cells and electrolyzers.”

“Hensel Recycling is [a] proud member of the BEST4Hy consortium, an innovative EU financed research project to recycle fuel cells and save precious resources: we are delighted to be on board and contribute,” says Anna Marchisio, business development manager at Hensel Recycling.

BEST4Hy members say they will focus on the recycling of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). “The project aims to adapt two existing recycling processes applied already to other technologies and to validate a novel dismantling process for PEMFCs,” states the group, adding, “Ambitious targets for recycled content in new stacks/cells have been set and will be validated by fuel cell producers, to prove the viability of higher value, closed-loop recycling.”

Polymers and platinum group metals are among the materials in PEMFCs, while SOFCs can contain rare earth metals, such as lanthanum and strontium, plus zirconia and some nickel.