The Fuel Cells and Hydrogen (FCH) technologies will play an important role in a future where greenhouse gasses emissions need to be reduced. Nevertheless, a huge implementation of these technologies must be addressed taking into account an eco friendly scope not only from the manufacturing perspective but also from the end-of-life scope. A classification of the materials has been done considering the importance of each of them. To obtain a complete overview of the problem, different criteria have been compared: the cost, the scarcity of the material and the affections these materials can cause not only to the environment but also to the humans. This classification has been used to identify which are the most critical materials. Moreover, other transversal issues have been studied as the regulations that apply to FCH technologies from a paneuropean perspective and the strategies to face the end-of-life of these equipments. A holistic point of view has been considered in order to see how the process of dismantling and recycling faces different problems and which milestones to achieve in a future with a deep market penetration are.

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In this paper an environmental impacts of a 3 kW uninterruptible power supply system with polymer membrane fuel cell (FCH-UPS) was evaluated with a life cycle assessment (LCA) method. The analysis was focused on the analysis of the end of life (EOL) scenarios that will help to reduce environmental impacts during manufacturing stage. Numerical model of the FCH-UPS was developed using Gabi software. The scope of analysis was cradle-to-grave with functional unit 1 kWh of produced electric energy. In operating phase two geographical locations are compared where hydrogen is produced with electrolysis on-site. Three EOL scenarios were analysed: base, feasible and realistic scenario. With realistic EOL scenario in average a 72% reduction of all environmental impacts in the manufacturing phase was achieved. EOL phase of 3kW FCH-UPS represents low environmental impact compared with other phases in the entire life cycle of observed system. CO 2 emissions of 3 kW FCH-UPS system was 239 g CO 2 per 1 kWh of produced electricity if operating in Norway and 4040 g CO 2 per 1 kWh in Morocco due to electricity grid mix. Results show that with circular economy, recycling and reuse of the materials in EOL phase, an average reduction of 66 % in all environmental impact indicators could be achieved in entire life cycle of a 3kW FCH-UPS system operated in Norway. Keywords: Life cycle assessment (LCA), hydrogen technologies (HT), end of life assessment (EOLA), polymer exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), uninterruptible power supply (UPS), circular economy *Revised Manuscript with No Changes Marked Click here to view linked References

A long‐term stability study of an anode‐supported NiO/YSZ‐YSZ‐LSM/YSZ microtubular cell was performed, under low fuel utilization conditions, using pure humidified hydrogen as fuel at the anode side and air at the cathode side. A first galvanometric test was performed at 766 °C and 200 mA cm–2, measuring a power output at 0.5 V of ∼250 mW cm–2. During the test, some electrical contact breakdowns at the anode current collector caused sudden current shutdowns and start‐up events. In spite of this, the cell performance remains unchanged. After a period of 325 h, the cell temperature and the current density was raised to 873°C and 500 mA cm–2, and the cell power output at 0.5 V was ∼600 mW cm–2. Several partial reoxidation events due to disturbance in fuel supply occurred, but no apparent degradation was observed. On the contrary, a small increase in the cell output power of about 4%/1,000 h after 654 h under current load was obtained. The excellent cell aging behavior is discussed in connection to cell configuration. Finally, the experiment concluded when the cell suffered irreversible damage due to an accidental interruption of fuel supply, causing a full reoxidation of the anode support and cracking of the thin YSZ electrolyte.

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