Technology Outline (Process Description)

The project is targeted for building the high temperature PEM fuel cell (HT-PEMFC) technology by indigenizing the Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA) with all its materials and components (catalyst, membrane, GDL, GDE, etc.) in order to enable Indian ecosystem for hydrogen fuel cells. The technology involves development of processes which are scalable to near production level for indigenized GDL, catalyst, GDE, membrane and MEA. Once the process and component level indigenization is achieved, the work will be aligned for demonstrating and performance mapping on single cells based on the completely indigenized components under the industrial operable conditions and building and testing of short stacks of up to 500 W capacity by optimization of flow geometry, performing on pre-defined reformate feed with an average efficiency of 45% and performance degradation rate of within 10μV/h. At present, building a HT-PEMFC in India requires many bought out components, which creates major issues related to meeting consistency in performance, accuracy in manufacturing and meeting commercial viability in terms of cost. This indigenization effort for the raw materials and sub-components while also ensuring their manufacturing readiness aimed in this drive will ultimately enable the development of an efficient manufacturing ecosystem in the country. The team has already met successes in making the indigenous platinum supported carbon (Pt/C) catalyst, high temperature proton conducting membrane (HT-membrane) and membrane electrode assembly (MEA). The performance of these components will be further improved as part of the optimization processed proposed in this project.