Life cycle assessment (LCA) and/or life cycle costing (LCC) of hydrogen technologies

Master Thesis
LCA
LCC
Hydrogen

What?

Master thesis work

Where?

At IPESE lab (Sion, Switzerland), hybrid

When?

From February 2025

Context

The need to limit climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions according to the Paris Agreement (2015) is driving the development of existing and new technologies able to produce and use “greener” energy. Particularly, according to the European Hydrogen Strategy (2020) hydrogen is crucial to achieve the agreed carbon neutrality by 2050. This strategy pushes the improvement and deployment of existing electrolysers and fuel cells, and research is contributing to the development of new technologies with promising characteristics for efficient hydrogen production. Among these technologies are Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM), Anion exchange Membrane (AEM), Solid oxide (SOEC), Alkaline (AEL) and Proton Ceramic (PC). However, environmental performance, the material criticality and the overall cost of such technologies must be assessed.

The European research projects NOAH2, SUSTAINCELL and ANEMEL are active in this direction. Indeed, the goal of these projects is to support European industry with the development of the next generation of electrolyser and fuel cell technologies that rely on a sustainable European supply chain of materials, components and cells, significantly less reliant on critical raw materials (CRM), with lower environmental footprint and costs, considering circular strategies, and with higher performance and durability than existing technologies.

Project objectives and tasks

The aim of the master project is to elaborate the environmental and/or cost profile of one or more technologies from the information gathered via a literature review and the data collected from industrial and academic project partners. The technologies include Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM), Anion exchange Membrane (AEM), Solid oxide (SOEC), Alkaline (AEL) and Proton Ceramic (PC). The main tasks are:

  • performing a literature review of the existing life cycle studies.
  • Collecting primary and secondary data from literature and from project partners.
  • Developing up-to-date life cycle inventories (LCI) for the environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) and/or life cycle costing (LCC).
  • Compute the impact profile to(i) identify the main hotspots of impacts in terms of life cycle stages, processes, and flows, where more attention should be directed to reduce the environmental and/or economic footprints, and (ii) compare the performances of the selected technologies.
  • Performing sensitivity analyses on main modeling choices (life cycle impact assessment methods, allocation choices) and input parameters.
  • Generating recommendations to support the ecodesign process of novel technologies.

Skills and Background

We’re seeking students with:

  • Ability to gather and process information and interpret results to support robust recommendations.
  • Basic knowledge of life cycle assessment and/or life cycle costing.
  • Coding skills and previous knowledge of hydrogen technology systems are a plus.

Supervision and conditions

The project is performed in collaboration with partners from various Horizon 2020 European Projects and benefits from the support of an experienced LCA analyst from CIRAIG at HES-SO.

The project is supervised by:

  • Manuele Margni, Prof. at HES-SO Valais Wallis at Energypolis, Sion and at Polytechnique Montréal.
  • Coaching: Eleonora Crenna, CIRAIG / HESSO.
  • An official EPFL main supervisor needs to be identified; Prof. François Maréchal or Jan van Herle are knowledgeable professors that could take this role.

Application

Interested students must send an application file including a CV, a transcript (bachelor and master) and a cover letter to Manuele Margni and Eleonora Crenna. The position remains open until a suitable candidate is found.