LCA of a fuel cell using gold for the bipolar plates Sacha Gerbinet - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

LCA of a fuel cell using gold for the bipolar plates Saïcha Gerbinet 1 , A.-P. Romano 2 , Giuseppe Caldarella 1 , Nathalie Job 1 , Sylvie Groslambert 1 , Angélique Léonard 1 Saicha.gerbinet@uliege.be 1 Department of Chemical Engineering Université de Liège http://chemeng.uliege.be 2 Materia Nova Research Center 1

900 km? 2 solutions 2

900 km? Solution 1: 45 days ! (20 km/day) 3

900 km? Solution 2: 4

Fuel cells 5

HYLIFE ► Optimize lifetime and efficiency of materials for fuel cell ► Environmental impact 6

Bipolar plates O 2 , Air H 2 O 2 , Air 7

System boundaries Inox Water Cutting Degreasing bath Acetone Electricity Water Scouring HCl Electricity Deposit Acid pre-gold bath 1 bipolar plate 8

Results ReCiPe MidPoint (H) 9

Results ReCiPe MidPoint (H) 10

Deposit? ReCiPe MidPoint (H) 11

Gold in the whole bipolar plate? ReCiPe MidPoint (H) 12

Reduce the impact of gold? ► 2 solutions ! Solution 1: 13

Reduce the impact of gold? ► 2 solutions ! ► Optimize the bath use ► Use recycled gold 14

Number of plates per bath? ReCiPe MidPoint (H) 15

Recycled gold ► Difficulty to find reliable information ► Bibliographic studies ► Use of: « Gold treatment of precious metal from electronics scrap, in anode slime, precious metal extraction | Alloc Def, U » 16

Recycled gold 17

In the fuel cell? O 2 , Air H 2 O 2 , Air 18

In the fuel cell? ReCiPe MidPoint (H) 19

In the fuel cell? ReCiPe MidPoint (H) 20

Gold? ReCiPe MidPoint (H) 21

Conclusion 900 km? 22

Conclusion/perspectives ► Large contribution of gold ► Does the performance improvement justify the use of precious metal? ► Recycling ? ► Lack of data ► Not always an improvement of environmental impact ► Availability? ► Design to allow recycling? 23