PEPR project
Durable, high-performance, low-cost EHT ceramic cells
Dates:
August 2021 – July 2027
Project coordinator:
CEA Liten
Partner laboratories:
10 academic laboratories
IMN staff involved:
Olivier JOUBERT
The CELCER-EHT project aims to develop High Temperature Steam Electrolysis (HTSE) cells offering levels of performance and durability beyond the current state of the art:
In 2024, thanks to an acute improvement in current cell materials, a degradation level of 1%/1000h when operating at 0.85 A/cm² and 1.3V per cell, as well as robustness of the hydrogen electrode enabling a cold start-up time of 8h and a hot start-up time of 300s.
By 2026, thanks to the use of new materials considered highly promising today, a degradation level of 0.7%/1000h when operating at 1 A/cm² and 1.3V per cell.
These targets, included in the French and European roadmaps, are a prerequisite for the commercialization of EHT, and position the CELCER-EHT project as a direct response to priority no. 1 of the French Hydrogen Plan: “decarbonizing industry by developing a French electrolysis industry”.
The research strategy for achieving these ambitious goals is focused on materials and process development, and is divided into two phases. In the short term, the project aims to make the most of today’s most promising cell materials (Ni-YSZ cermet, doped zirconia and perovskite-type oxides) by optimizing their compositions, microstructures and interfaces. In the longer term, research will focus on the development of new cell materials (e.g. doped ceria, nickelates and decomposition products), new microstructures (e.g. core-shell powders, functionalized interfaces, texturing) and their implementation in a totally breakthrough cell.
Materials and process development are geared to the specific and extremely stringent specifications of the EHT, and are organized according to an exhaustive approach, from the enhancement of intrinsic material properties to the definition of integrated electrolysis-specific microstructures optimized for the cell. This approach is based, on the one hand, on advanced characterizations of various kinds (chemical, electrochemical, mechanical and microstructural), at different scales (material, symmetrical cells, complete cells) and under operating conditions and, on the other hand, on the results of multi-physics and multi-scale modeling and simulation constituting numerical twins.
The project partners are all recognized scientists in the field of ceramic cells for EHT. They bring together the expertise needed to achieve the project’s ambitious objectives: solid-state chemistry on different families of ceramics or glass-ceramics (CIRIMAT, IMN, ICMCB and UCCS), catalysis (ICPEES), deposition and characterization of ceramic thin films with different deposition techniques (FEMTO, IRCP, GREMI and LEPMI), ceramic processing (CEA-LR, CEA Liten and IRCER), electrochemistry (CEA-Liten, ICMCB, IMN, IRCP and LEPMI), as well as advanced microstructural characterization and multi-physics and multi-scale modeling (CEA-Liten, ICPEES and LGF). As constituted, the consortium has the capacity to accelerate the development of completely new ceramics and to implement them in cells beyond the state of the art in a reduced timeframe.
Within PEPR H2, the CELCER-EHT project (PC1) complements the PROTEC (PC2) and FLEXISOC (PC5) projects. These three projects will be conducted in close synergy, because although they involve different specifications, materials and tests, they call on the same areas of expertise.
