The market for PEM fuel cells will increase to 10’s GWs per annum from 2025. For the catalyst coated membrane (CCM), a critical stack component, continuous manufacturing processes are currently being implemented by manufacturers worldwide. Whilst these will meet CCM demand for the next 10 years, the growing requirement for increased numbers of CCMs thereafter necessitates a manufacturing step-change, both in terms of cost and capacity. MAMA-MEA will address this by assembling a consortium with extensive knowledge and expertise both of fuel cell technology and manufacturing in the digital coating and printed electronic industry, to develop the highly innovative concept of an additive layer manufacturing (ALM) process for the edge-sealed CCM. The key CCM components (anode and cathode catalyst layers, ion-conducting membrane and edge seals) will be deposited with high precision and speed, one component layer on top of the other, and just in the areas of the CCM where they are required for functionality. Preliminary one-off prototypes have established the feasibility of the approach, and patent applications have been filed. MAMA-MEA will develop this innovative ALM process from MRL3 to MRL 6, by integrating the CCM components in to a single continuous roll-to-roll manufacturing process and validating the sealed CCMs in two full-size stationary application PEM fuel cell stacks. A key project objective will be an increase in the manufacturing rate of over 10 times compared to the state-of-the-art process, whilst also increasing material utilisation to 99%, and the product quality, and thus yield, to over 95%. Overall, sealed CCM direct materials and manufacturing costs will be reduced by up to 58% in the new CCMs. The project will also conduct comprehensive ex-situ characterisation and in-situ fuel cell performance and durability testing and provide an engineering design of an ALM sealed CCM production line, including quality control methodologies.

The EUCERMAT strategic partnership is an educational programme promoting the science of ceramics in Europe by sharing, developing and transferring innovative practices among universities and enhancing novelty in the field of trainings and research. The principal aim of this programme is then to achieve greater impact and visibility of innovative ceramic materials in Europe in order to stimulate this economic sector and in parallel to increase the natural enrolment of students in this disciplinary field.EUCERMAT promotes a strong synergy between industries and the leading universities working in this field in Europe. This partnership has set up, at master level, modern teaching methods integrating industrial prerogatives which are based on specialties of excellence of the participating universities. The partnership also manages innovative research projects between companies and universities in which the selected students are involved.The aim is therefore both to promote the image of ceramics among young people (high school pupils) and general public and to train highly qualified researchers likely to make a useful and powerful contribution in industrial innovations.The EUCERMAT program, coordinated by the University of Limoges, gathered together 13 European partners: 5 universities, 2 research institutes, 4 companies, 1 European learned society, 1 High school.The activities carried out during the three years of the project allowed:•To promote the science of ceramic materials thanks to the development of new pedagogical tools for high schools and specific promoting tools towards the general public. The goal is here clearly to attract more students in this field in the higher educational system. During this program, we benefited from the support of a renowned American institution (American Ceramic Society) which has been working on this topic for a few years. This work, which gathered together teachers from the high schools, academics from universities and industrials aims at building a bridge between secondary and higher educational system, clarifying in that way the training offers in the field of ceramic materials. A network of 15 European high schools has been set up and an educational program in materials science was designed for pupils involved in the last two years of the scientific classrooms. A pedagogical tool consisting in a ‘kit of knowledge’ encompassing few scientific experiences aiming to show the main properties of materials have been distributed in the high school network to initiate pedagogical collaboration.•To set up of a common training offer in English at the Master's level. The choice of courses was established in agreement with the industrial partners. Each university of the project provides an e-learning training module representative of the best skills of universities completed by a week session of practical work taking the research aspects to students.•To strengthen the functioning of the knowledge triangle in the field of ceramics sciences, through the creation of a European industrial network (14 Companies) offering funded research internships to second-year master's students. The research themes of the internships were established in agreement with the academic research laboratories (universities or institutes). The strategy developed is very innovative since these actions involve academic and industrial partners sharing long-standing cooperation (forming ‘active cells’) which guarantees the excellence of the research activities for students selected to participate to the program. The networking of the partners makes it possible to encourage European collaborations together with pooling of resources and skills.Each year, about 15 students belonging to the 5 universities participate to this programme (master level e-learning teaching programme and industrial internships) and 200 pupils and 50 teachers are concerned by the pedagogical activities towards high-schools. Research activities are impacting the 5 laboratories associated to the universities and the 2 research institutes that are partners of the programme.The EUCERMAT program has developed tools and resources which can now be used to ensure its sustainability.•At the level of innovative practices in communication around ceramics, the network of high schools and the synergy of functioning with universities are now settled and will be maintained thanks to the collaborations and to the educational tools developed within the framework of the program.•Regarding the teaching and research activities for master's students (the educational master’s programme), the courses are now created and are available by e-learning teaching hosted on Moodle platform and the business network will have its own interest in proposing new research topic each year and funded research internship for students.As a consequence the EUCERMAT activities are maintained today.