CRESCENDO comprises five technical work packages (WP2 - WP6), and two supporting work packages (WP1 and WP7).
WP1 is dedicated to project management and WP7 to knowledge management, communication and dissemination.
WP2 - Requirements, Benchmarking, Industrial scale testing, Life cycle and Cost analyses and Exploitation potential led by BMW: WP2 defines the automotive system requirements that dictate the power density and durability targets of the project and that thereby establish the catalyst activity and stability requirements. WP2 also comprises benchmarking of a selected number of state of the art non-PGM cathode catalysts, industrial scale testing of the final down-selected catalyst in a large scale (>200 cm2) cell, the results from which will feed into the cost analysis and overall considerations of the exploitation potential of non-PGM catalysts in automotive application PEMFCs.
WP3 – Non-PGM cathode catalysts led by TUB: WP3 is where non-PGM cathode catalysts will be developed. They will be screened for their activity and stability with the full range of electrochemical and physicochemical methods that are most appropriate for such materials but also with new diagnostic tools, and the most promising will be fed into WP4.
WP4 – Diagnostics and approaches for improved non-PGM cathode durability led by CNRS: WP4 will introduce approaches to confer long term stability to the best WP3 catalysts and will develop methodologies to screen for stability towards free radical induced degradation and quantify site density before and after fuel cell operation, and local techniques to investigate the catalyst operando. On the basis of the performance and durability of lab-scale single cell testing in WP4, leading concepts will be fed into the non-PGM cathode catalyst layer design optimisation activity in WP5.
WP5 – Advanced cathode layer design for non-PGM catalysts led by JMFC: WP5 will initially troubleshoot the standard catalyst layers prepared with the CRESCENDO Reference catalyst, by breaking down into individual components the various effects leading to transport losses. Using this understanding, WP5 will incorporate the best catalysts into high performance and durable cathode layers, optimise the ionomer and, using a state of the art membrane, integrate these together into lab-scale and full-size (>200 cm2) CCMs and feed to WP2 for testing.
WP6 – Ultra-low-PGM and non-PGM anode catalysts led by CEA: WP6 will develop and characterise PGM-free or and ultra-low PGM anode catalysts with improved CO and sulfur (H2S) tolerance. They will be transferred to WP5 for anode catalyst development in the best case scenario of reaching activity targets at PGM loadings <0.025 mg/cm2.
