A European consortium led by Norway’s SINTEF AS has launched the BeBoP project to improve the efficiency and reliability of fuel cell (FC) components for heavy commercial vehicles, aviation, shipping, and rail, the group announced.
The project, officially titled Beyond state-of-the-art Efficiency by improving Balance of Plant components, focuses on advancing key supporting parts of FC systems, collectively known as the ‘balance of plant’ (BoP). “The project will develop models to characterize and optimize operation of next-generation BoP components designed to minimize power consumption and reduce heavy-duty fuel cell systems’ hydrogen consumption,” the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) stated.
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The 42-month initiative, backed by the European Union, the Clean Hydrogen Partnership, and Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation, has a budget of nearly 4 million euros. The consortium includes Germany’s DLR, Garrett Motion (France), Freudenberg Filtration Technologies (Germany), Freudenberg Technology Innovation (Germany), Silver Atena (Germany), FPT Industrial (Italy), and FPT Motorenforschung AG (Switzerland).
BeBoP aims to improve FC system performance by developing a more efficient air compressor, a lightweight and compact DC/DC converter integrated with a power distribution unit (PDU) and cell monitoring function, and an advanced humidifier with reinforced membranes and optimized airflow distribution. “By enabling the scale-up of the components by European manufacturers, the project brings the fuel cell market closer to large-scale deployment based on tested, reliable technology,” DLR added.
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The newly developed components will undergo testing in fuel cell systems from FPT Industrial or a short stack from DLR, with SINTEF and DLR contributing modeling expertise to refine the system’s operation.