Materials and Surface Technology as Key for Engineering Sustainable Products

For a sustainable and CO2-neutral energy mobility ecosystem material innovations are key to fulfil the increased product requirements over the entire product life cycle.

By using renewable energy, it is possible to reduce the CO2-footprint of materials being used in terms of sustainability. In addition, it is important to make products as energy efficient as possible during the use phase in order to reduce energy consumption and thus CO2 emissions as much as possible. For this purpose, a holistic view on materials over the entire life cycle is target-oriented in order to design products in the best possible way for applications in motion and mobility [1].

In dependence of the vehicle weight or driving distance, there are several ideas for future mobility. Next to the direct use of electrical energy for battery electric vehicles, a second possibility comprises the conversion of regeneratively generated electricity into green hydrogen as an energy carrier for fuel cell electric vehicles [1]. Defossilization of the energy chain requires increased industrialization of components for electrolyzers and metallic bipolar plates, strategic components of fuel cells [2,3].

For all concepts the selected materials need to stand in a balance of efficiency, costs, availability, and sustainability. The material requirements for solid, liquid and gaseous materials will increase and an optimal material-product and production co-design is essential to achieve the best efficiency along the whole life cycle from cradle to gate over the use phase to grave to cradle.

In this context, the reduction of the amount of material and the possibilities of lightweight design, the reduction of the material-related CO2 footprint, the possibilities of the circular economy under consideration of the R-strategies from re-use to re-cycling as well as the increase of energy efficiency and reduction of CO2 emissions in the use phase are considered.

Especially for precious materials and alloying elements with a high cost and CO2-footprint, an efficient use of these materials must be achieved for structural materials and for functional materials. Exemplarily, while electrochemical cells need to be corrosion protected, electrically conductive and mechanically stable, the CO2-footprint and costs could be significantly decreased by reducing the precious metal share and the alloying elements of the metallic bipolar plates. The substrate material is responsible for the largest share of the CO2-footprint and an optimized material selection allows a reduction of 50 %, whereby it becomes increasingly important to understand the impact of unfavored alloying elements due to scrap-based steel on the steel quality. This shows that material quality and CO2-footprint must be considered together in future. Material Technology and Surface Technology will continue to be a key technologies for a sustainable and CO2-neutral mobility regardless of the powertrain concept.

Reference
[1] T. Hosenfeldt, Plasma Processes Polym. (2022) e2200014.
[2] Hydrogen Council. Hydrogen scaling up: a sustainable pathway for the global energy transition. (2017).
[3] European Commission. Energy Roadmap 2050. (2012).