The objective is to develop and integrate the most advanced critical PEMFC stack components, many from recent FCH JU programmes, into an automotive stack showing BOL performance of 1.5 W/cm2 at 0.6V, <10% power degradation after 6,000 hours, with a technical and economic assessment showing a cost of less than €50/kW at a 50,000 annual production scale. This will be achieved by leading industrial and academic partners with expertise in the design and manufacture of PEMFC stacks, their components and materials. They will select and build on components which can achieve key target metrics, e.g. catalyst materials showing mass activities of 0.44 A/mg Pt. There will be focus on integration of the key components and optimisation of the interfaces regarding the electrochemistry, mass and heat transport, and mechanical interactions. Several iterations of an advanced stack design will be evaluated. Work is organised to optimise the flow of development, which begins with catalysts being advanced and down-selected, scaled then fed into the design and development of catalyst layers, integration with membranes and the demonstration of CCM performance. The CCMs feed into stack component development where they will be integrated with GDLs to form MEAs; and where bipolar plates will be designed and developed and supplied with the MEAs for iterative stack design, assembly and testing. All mandatory and optional objectives of the FCH 2 JU Work Plan are addressed. Performance and durability are evaluated from small single cell to stack level using standardised test protocols. Degradation is addressed by stability testing, structural visualisation and modelling. Interfaces and specification alignment is an important focus, being integrated with the evaluation of new architectures and synthesis methods and informing balance of plant component specifications. Dismantling and recycling for the recovery and re-use of all critical MEA components is included in the costing evaluation.

The overarching objective of the H2MARINE project is to design, build, test and validate two (2) PEM stacks generating 250 - 300 kW electric power designed for marine applications. The H2MARINE project takes a top-down approach, building on a proof of concept of two PEM stacks that are developed in the EU and Switzerland. The H2MARINE project will: Identify the requirements for the tests and conditions as well as load curves that the FC stacks will have to be tested against with the integrated knowledge of a major ship building industry (ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems) and ship owners (Cleos) representing Gaslog, Drylog Ltd. And Olympic Shipping (totaling more than 100 large ships). - Both PowerCell and EHGroup stack manufactures will benefit from a great consortium surrounding their development, testing and upscaling with unique testing facilities (Beyond Gravity, ZSW, Greenerity, University of Freiburg), industrial partners like DANA, upscaling capacities of stacks by CERTH, EPFL and novel diagnostics development by VTT. This will allow them to enhance the state of the art (SoA) of PEMFC stacks, advance and scale up the system to reach ambitious targets set in the call which will be disseminated by CLUBE member of numerous FCH projects. - Test the proposed solutions in relevant environment/ecosystem, which are designed to fully represent the actual implementation conditions. - Design the stack modules in an optimum manner for up-scaling up to 10MW power train systems. - Test several diagnostics for the stack and overall system integrity as well as for the health status prognosis of critical components. - Assess the technology and economic feasibility of the solution, in order to know its valuable end-use, which will allow the partners to research the potential market/s and identification of the best opportunities.