Interview to Simon Pitscheider, Senior Materials Specialist at Danish Technological Institute

Q: What does catalyst upscaling and fabrication consists of?

A: Within RECYCALYSE, we work with materials on different scales. Catalyst and support development are usually performed in small quantities (milligram scale) however, in this project, we also focus on electrode and stack development. Once suitable catalyst and support candidates are identified, the production needs to be scaled up to larger quantities (up to hundreds of grams) for the stack production.

Q: What are the main challenges?

The main challenges related with this upscaling strategy are to keep the same catalyst properties from the lab scale to the production scale. We aim to ensure that the catalyst nanoparticles are evenly and finely distributed on the support, as well as to be able to work with higher concentrations, in order to optimize the yield of the process and minimize the amount of waste.

RECYCALYSE focuses on the full life cycle of the electrolyser systems, from raw materials to the recycling of used electrolysers. Therefore, the developed synthesis procedures will be compatible with the recycled critical raw materials.

Here at Danish Technological Institute, we have experience with synthesizing supported precious metal nanoparticles in a one-step flow process, and we are tuning the procedure, in collaboration with the University of Bern and Fraunhofer ICT, for the catalyst and support materials that are used within RECYCALYSE.