Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (National Council of Research-Italy) (CNR), www.cnr.it, is a public research organization; its duties are to carry out, promote, spread and transfer research activities in the main sectors of knowledge growth and use this research for the scientific, technological, economic and social development of the Country.

CNR is composed of 7 main departments covering different fields. The total number of CNR employees amounts to about 8000.

The Institute for Advanced Energy Technologies (CNR-ITAE), www.itae.cnr.it, is located in Messina (Italy). CNR-ITAE belongs to Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, in particular to the Department: Engineering, ICT and Technologies for Energy and Transportation. The institute has two locations covering about 7000 m², divided into laboratories, offices, conference rooms, library etc.

ITAE’s strategic mission is mainly aimed at promoting and developing innovative energy processes and technologies with a higher efficiency and a lower environmental impact based on the use of fossil fuels (still available today) and/or renewable energy sources.

Hydrogen is the focus of intense research activities at the Italian National Council of Research, in particular at CNR-ITAE Institute of Advanced Energy Technologies. In the hydrogen sector, CNR performs wide-ranging research and development activities covering materials, components, technology and field-testing. CNR attitude is based on a synergy between basic and applied research, organised through a multidisciplinary approach.

These skills, which represent the chemical core of the ITAE, are accompanied by the design, construction and testing of complete devices typical of the Institute’s engineering sector, which also deals with the design and testing of systems and demonstration structures to be used in both fixed and mobile energy applications.

The CNR ITAE is developing procedures and protocols to test the electrolysis technologies investigated in the project. ITAE deals with the evaluation of degradation mechanisms that influence the durability, performance, efficiency and dynamic behavior of electrolysis technologies. The results of the activities will be used to evaluate the stack components ex-situ and in-situ helping to better understand the degradation effects at the stack level.