AGRAL

  This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 654216.  

Title

Development of the optimum AGRAL cermet manufacturing process for aluminium inert anode application and fuel cell interconnect plates

Concept

The AGRAL (Advanced Green Aluminium anode) project will aim at developing the manufacturing technologies of a specific cermet (called AGRAL cermet within this proposal) that has shown at lab scale outstanding properties in high temperature and corrosive media i.e. aluminium electrolysis. Furthermore, this AGRAL cermet enables Aluminium Pechiney, leader of this project, to consider the replacement of their current carbon anode by this inert anode thus decreasing to zero the CO2 emission during electrolysis process. Furthermore this AGRAL cermet will be tested for two applications: aluminium electrolysis (for the manufacturing of an inert anode up to industrial scale) and for protection of interconnect plates in hydrogen and fuel cell application (up to pre-prototype scale). This AGRAL cermet will be used as an inert anode in the Aluminium industry. Thanks to the inert anode, it is expected to decrease by a minimum of 50% of CO2 emissions compared to currently used carbon anode. Then, the transfer to the fuel and hydrogen cell applications will be studied.

Participants

• Aluminium Pechiney, France (Coordinator)
• Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., Germany
• Flame Spray Technologies B.V., Netherlands
• Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives, France
• Ecoinnovazione srl, Italy
• Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Saint Etienne, France
• Cronite Cz S.r.o., Czechia
• Bodycote Specialist Technologies Deutschland Gmbh, Germany