At Centre for Fuel Cell Technology work started on the D2Service (“Design of 2 Technologies and Applications to Service”) research project, which is funded by the European Union. Jointly with project partners from five countries a method is being developed that will simplify maintenance of different kinds of combined heat and power plants (CHP plants) based on fuel cells. The primary objective is to noticeably reduce costs and labour for repair work, thereby increasing the distribution of energy-efficient fuel-cell-based technology throughout Europe.

During an evaluation phase at the start of the project, all seven project partners will analyse the CHP plants and their components, for example concerning maintenance and repair work, reliability, error statuses and spare parts. Due to the different technologies (Polymer electrolyte and solid oxide fuel cell) the special challenge consists of the alignment of equipment design. Not every component can be standardised, so alongside the joint developments (e.g. in water treatment and in the desulphurisation unit), the manufacturers are also carrying out individual design adaptations

In the course of the project ZBT will focus on the following activities:

• Development of lifetime desulfurisation based on catalytic method HDS (Hydrodesulphurisation)
• Optimisation of process water treatment
• Support of reformer optimisation
• Test and validation of optimised systems

The three-year D2Service research project (Grant Agreement Number 671473) is funded through the Horizon 2020 European research program and the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH-JU) with a total of around three million euros. In addition to ZBT, the other project partners involved are the manufacturers Dantherm (Denmark) and SOLIDpower (Italy), the component developer Bosal Emission Control Systems (Belgium), the energy services provider Energy Partner (Italy), the energy supplier British Gas Trading Limited (UK) and NEXT ENERGY (Germany).

Contact
Dr. Christian Spitta
Project Manager
Tel. +49 (0)203 7598 4277
c.spitta@zbt-duisburg.de

Department Fuel Processing