Research database

Hydrogen is becoming more and more a realistic solution contributing to the decarbonization of our economy. As demand for hydrogen technology increases, more and more devices become in use and will eventually end up in the waste stream, requiring therefore handling in a sustainable manner. The issue is not only ensuring a correct disposal path within a clear regulatory context, but also ensuring the full recovery of the critical materials used. This is crucial not only for ensuring the new hydrogen technologies and devices have a lower environmental impact than their counterparts over the whole life cycle but also for recirculating extremely precious and rare materials supporting the whole hydrogen economy delivery, literally. Current and previous experience on end of life of components with similar levels of technical complexity, economic dependency and potential environmental impact (from batteries to electronic equipment, both identified as areas of action from the latest Circular Economy Action Plan) shows that waste prevention and management starts from the design of the component and that work needs to be directed also towards prolonging the life of the devices and ensuring they can be dismantled for reuse and ease of recycling. In addition, recycled material should be used to manufacture new devices without loss of performance and as much as possible at lower environmental and economic cost. This is however possible only if such material can be delivered by a reliable supply chain that adopts environmentally and economically viable recycling technologies.