TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH
The Technical University of Munich (TUM) remains as one of Europe´s top universities due to its commitment to excellence in research and teaching, in cooperation with companies and academic institutions worldwide. Under this premise, the Chair of Technical Electrochemistry focuses on energy storage key technologies relevant to current socio-political and environmental demands.
COMPANY DESCRIPTION
As part of TUM´s Department of Chemistry, the Chair of Technical Electrochemistry (TEC) contributes to the development of energy storage technologies, focusing on polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells and PEM water electrolyzers, as well as on Li-ion batteries. With four ongoing PEM FCs projects that are conducted by 12 Ph.D. students, the group benefits from a broad spectrum of knowledge and experience. Under the supervision of Prof. Hubert A. Gasteiger (>25 years of fuel cells expertise), various research topics of high importance to these systems are currently being investigated. These range from material development and characterization (PGM-based and PGM-free catalysts, MEAs, and GDLs) all the way to the design and application of component-targeted accelerated stress tests (ASTs), supported in situ and post-mortem analyses.
One of the essential tasks of TEC within the MORELife project is the simulation/prediction of degradation mechanisms/rates for heavy-duty (HD) applications by means of tailored ASTs, allowing more fundamental insights into the relationship between materials degradation and the observed performance losses. Building onto our prior expertise in evaluating the degradation mechanisms for light-duty PEM fuel cell applications, TEC will tailor and selectively design ASTs relevant for HD operation, with the ultimate goal of enabling both a prediction of lifetime and developing strategies to prolong lifetime by means of suitable mitigation strategies.
ROLE & KEY CONTRIBUTION
Within the MORELife project, TEC will work on the development of tailored ASTs relevant for HD operation. For this, real-life HD data from MORELife partners are analyzed to assess common operation conditions and select key parameters relevant for degradation phenomena. These tailored ASTs are expected to allow to predict lifetimes and to identify common degradation mechanisms occurring in HD applications with state-of-the-art materials and beyond state-of-the-art materials in small active area single-cells and in short stacks.
CONTACT
Technical University of Munich
Department of Chemistry
Lichtenbergstraße 4
85748 Garching, Germany