PilotSOEL will develop and demonstrate SOEL cells and stacks for high-current operation, applying advanced scalable manufacturing processes to enable SOEL production at much lower cost than for today’s state-of-the-art (SoA) products. The project will focus on innovative upscalable and low-cost SOEL component manufacturing processes with reduced use of Critical Raw Materials (CRM) and waste recycling in the cell production processes, and increase the degree of automation in the stack assembly to reduce manufacturing cost. The project will develop a novel environmentally friendly water-based tape casting process with a reduced number of process steps for half-cell production. Innovative thin protective barrier layers deposited by ALD and PVD, together with microstructural cell optimisation, will reduce the cell resistance, improving the cell performance and durability at high current operation. The dense and thin coating made by PVD will improve the oxidization resistance of the interconnector, allowing the use of cheaper alloys, and ensuring a long stack lifetime. A life-cycle assessment (LCA) and a techno-economic analysis (TEA) will be performed to benchmark the developed processes in PilotSOEL with the SoA SOEL production processes. The project is aiming to improve the SOEL processing MRL from MRL 4 at the beginning of the project to at least MRL 5 at the end of the project. The PilotSOEL consortium is formed by experienced industries and research partners with complementary competences and well-defined roles in the project, including cell and cell component development (DTU, ELCAS, Naco, Beneq), interconnector coating development (Naco, ELCOY), stack development and stack assembly process automation (ELCOY), performance validation (DTU), and finally LCA/TEA (UL) of SOEL manufacture. PilotSOEL will ensure the competitive position of key European industries/SMEs in the rapidly growing world market for electrolysis technology, taking the leadership in this area.

The flexolighting programme is focussed on research and innovations on materials, processes and device technology for OLED lighting with the intention of building a supply chain within Europe. The aim is to realise OLED devices over a large area/surface with high brightness, high uniformity and long life time. A demonstrator will be built and delivered at the end of the project. The main targets are (i). Cost of the lighting panels should be less than Euro 1 per 100 lumens. (II). high luminous efficiency, in excess of 100 lm/W with improved out-coupling efficiency. (ii). white light life-time of at least 1000 hours at 97% of the original luminance of 5000 cdm-2.(iii). The materials and the devices therefrom will allow for differential aging of the colours, thus maintaining the same colour co-ordinates and CRI over its use. (iv). Attention will be paid to recyclability and environmental impact of the materials and the OLED lighting systems. Flexolighting project will also ensure European industrial leadership in lighting. The introduction of OLED Lighting technology is held back by the current cost of the systems, life-time and poor uniformity of luminance on large area panels. The programme aims to combine existing state of the art OLED materials technology (Thermally activated fluorescent materials (TADF) and phosphorescent emitters and world class transport materials) with new developments in processing technologies (Organic Vapour Phase Deposition (OVPD) and printing technologies) to develop new next of generation low cost OLED lighting systems to move forward to scale up and full scale production on novel planarized flexible steel substrates with cost effective conformal encapsulation method. The transparent top contacts made of thin metallic films, conducting polymers or graphene monolayer with metal tracks to reduce the series resistance will be employed in inverted top emitting OLED structures to deliver 100 lumens per Euro.

The overall objective of the ARMS project (Atomic layer-coated gRaphene electrode-Based Micro-flexible and Structural supercapacitors (ARMS) is to integrate comprehensive materials and processes, including graphene-rich bio-based carbon materials and graphene-decorated carbon fibers, and to develop scalable and cost-effective atomic layer deposition (ALD) manufacturing technology to fabricate totally eco-friendly supercapacitors with energy density reaching > 50 Wh/kg that is comparable to batteries without sacrificing the power density, cycle life or eco-friendliness, and open up opportunities to establish a new value chain for supercapacitor manufacturing with European SMEs as key players. The consortium will achieve this goal by a combination of factors, working in a coordinated fashion: process modification to enable production of high-graphene-content porous carbon for printed flexible energy storage, conformal graphene coating onto carbon fibres for structural supercapacitors, decoration of both types of electrodes with ultra-thin conformal ALD coating of MnO2 and Fe2O3 for increased stability and voltage window (to be scaled up to roll-to-roll by Beneq), and development of novel, environmentally-friendly electrolytes. The energy storage devices enabled by this work will be integrated into two use-case demonstrators to show the viability of the concept: a wireless sensor device powered a printed flexible supercapacitor, and a drone powered by structural supercapacitors which are simultaneously structural parts of the drone.