A Sustainable Approach to the Use of Materials in Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Technologies

Dear Colleagues,

According to recent trends in scientific and policy making communities, hydrogen will play one of the key roles in the decarbonization process of our economy. With the higher number of fuel cells and hydrogen technologies (FCH) in use, different mass flows will be generated, and a need for sustainable approach in the end-of-life (EoL) phase of these products is of paramount importance. The recovery of critical, precious, and rare earth materials is important not only to achieve lower environmental impacts of the FCH technologies throughout their whole life cycle but also for recirculation of all critical materials that support the hydrogen economy delivery chain. The control of waste flows starts already in the design and manufacturing phase by choosing the approach that enables dismantling, reuse, and recycling of technologies. The Fuel Cell/Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH 2 JU) – established by the European Commission and fuel cell and hydrogen industries represented by Hydrogen Europe and the research community represented by Hydrogen Europe Research – is supporting and financing several projects to develop and validate a) eco-design guidelines for FCH products, b) existing and novel recycling technologies for key FCH products, and c) guidelines for Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) of FCH systems. For these purposes, life cycle assessment (LCA) is an unavoidable tool for evaluating the environmental performance of technologies in their various life cycle phases and under different conditions as it provides a holistic assessment. In addition, the LCSA approach – which evaluates and integrates environmental, social, and economic impacts into decision-making processes leading to more sustainable products throughout their life cycle – is becoming increasingly important for current and future policy-makers, stakeholders, enterprises, and consumers. This Special Issue is therefore focused on materials used in FCH technologies where the key priority is improving their environmental performance by reducing, substituting, reusing, and recycling the materials. To accelerate these efforts, the research contributions should address several different topics including:

• Hydrogen production – electrolyzers
• Hydrogen consumption – fuel cells
• EU critical materials (e.g., platinum group, precious, and rare earth metals)
• End-of-life phase of technologies
• Recycling, reuse, remanufacturing
• Open and closed loop recycling
• Life cycle assessment
• Life cycle costs
• Environmental profile of technologies
• Circular economy and eco-design

Dr. Mitja Mori
Dr. Andrej Lotrič
Guest Editors

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• fuel cell and hydrogen technologies
• critical materials
• eco-design
• circular economy
• end of life
• recycling
• environmental engineering
• life cycle assessment
• life cycle costs