CONCERT - Japan prosjekt - iTHEUS

iTHEUS - "Fundamental investigations on improved materials and storage concepts for a hydrogen based integrated Total Energy Utilisation System" is funded via the CONCERT-Japan call on "Efficient, Energy Storage and Distribution". The main goal is to develop and optimize a new generation of a hydrogen-based energy system. The background for the work is the THEUS (Totalized Hydrogen Energy Utilisation System) developed by AIST in Japan. This system is mainly related to the use of renewable energy. The project addresses development of new materials for hydrogen storage, better storage tanks and modelling of the whole hydrogen-system. The applications are low-temperature PEM, medium-temperature, meaning high-temperature PEM and high-temperature SOFC fuel cells. The collaborators are IFE (European project leader), Tohoku University, Japan, Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Germany, EMPA, Switzerland and Aarhus University, Denmark as associated partner. During the last year we had a project meeting in Switzerland in February 2015 that was connected to the 9th International Symposium Hydrogen & Energy. In total during the 2-years project period, there have been 13 research-stays by researchers from IFE in Japan by the two Japanese partners. There have been in total 6 articles with authors from IFE and Japan, 4 more are in preparation, and >20 presentations in conferences and meetings with results from the project. Furthermore the iTHEUS project has been described in the Projects-magazine from Insight publishers in their December 2014 issue. As shown from the number of joint publications and presentations of the joint research, iTHEUS has significantly contributed to strengthen the collaboration between Norway and Japan, and in particular the collaboration between the participating European research institutions and the Japanese partners.