The Institut Charles Gerhardt Montpellier (ICGM) is pleased to inform you that the GAIA project coordinated by Déborah Jones, Research Director in the unit’s Chemistry of Materials, Nanostructures, Materials for Energy (D4) Department, has just been awarded 3rd place in the Society of Chemical Industry’s (SCI) 2023 Sustainability & Innovation Awards.
Fuel cells are one of the most promising technologies in the context of the energy transition. They are one of the most efficient energy converters, and produce no CO2 (with decarbonized hydrogen).
The overall aim of the GAIA project (2019-2022) was to develop new membrane-electrode assemblies for automotive fuel cells. GAIA has enabled the development of advanced materials that provide answers to the 5 hard points in automotive applications: performance, cost, quantity of noble metal, operation at higher temperatures, lifetime. In particular, these assemblies use a reinforced membrane developed in the laboratory and patented in 2014, which has been scaled up and validated in GAIA. This membrane is responsible for the increased durability of the assemblies.
The GAIA project partnership included industry, research organizations and universities. It was structured to cover a full range of complementary skills and to gather the critical mass required for its implementation and to achieve its objectives.
In October 2022, GAIA had already received the distinction of “Best Success Story” at the Clean Hydrogen Awards in Brussels; and had also been awarded Best Success Story a first time in November 2019.
This new distinction underlines the excellence of the GAIA project, whose automotive membrane electrode assemblies enable hydrogen fuel cells to achieve world-leading power densities without increasing the platinum load.
Find more information on the Society of Chemical Industry website