Company’s description

TECNALIA is a private applied research centre of international excellence with a major impact on local industry, which has become a driving force for people and organisations. Tecnalia Research & Innovation’s operational business model is based on sectorial Business Units. In them, market orientation and specialisation are our hallmarks. Tecnalia has 16 Business Units, made up of multidisciplinary teams that optimise our offer to different strategic sectors. In this way, we achieve a more comprehensive, more specialised and more excellent proposal for the business fabric and for the administrations. Tecnalia has a staff of 1,437 people (164 of whom are PhDs) and 25 offices around the world. The most significant sectors served by these Business Units are listed below: aerospace, automotive, construction, energy, railway, foundry, infotech, environment, naval, health and quality of life, iron and steel, industrial systems, innovation systems, information society, software, information technologies.

TECNALIA’s commitment is oriented in two directions: renewable energies and new, more efficient and sustainable energy carriers such as electricity and hydrogen. The Tecnalia Energy Unit has more than 150 researchers and works in emerging fields, innovation, research, development and strategic challenges for the future.

The Energy Unit is dedicated, among other things, to the development of technology in the field of Hydrogen and Fuel Cells. The Bioenergy and Materials for Energy departments are responsible for leading the strategic lines in this field. They have a team of 50 people, and the activities developed in the field of Hydrogen and Fuel Cells are as follows:

Hydrogen production

-Thermal decomposition of Natural Gas

– Plasma Technologies

– Catalytic Thermal Decomposition

-Gasification (biomass)
-Fermentation (biomass)

Hydrogen Storage

-Lightweight composite tanks.
-Metal hydrides obtained by Self-Propagating High Temperature Synthesis (SHS) technology.
-Safety in the use of hydrogen.

Fuel Cell Activities

-Polymeric PEMFC Fuel Cells

– Development of Membranes by Plasma Polymerisation techniques.

– Deposition of catalysts. Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD).

– New materials and coatings for bipolar plates.

– Software for design and modelling of PEMFC batteries.

-Solid oxide SOFC batteries.

– Application of Electrodes and Electrolyte by Thermal Projection techniques.

– Study of new materials for electrolyte for medium temperature SOFC batteries.