Presentation

Our century is defined by a race against time to limit global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, as agreed in the Paris Agreement by 192 Parties in December 2015. In this context, the massive deployment of intermittent renewable energies (RE) is a national and European priority, particularly in non-interconnected island territories such as La Réunion, where grid stability relies on energy storage and decarbonized hydrogen production.

Proton Exchange Membrane Water Electrolysis (PEMWE) is a key technology for converting surplus renewable electricity into hydrogen. However, the accumulation of oxygen bubbles at the anode significantly reduces system performance and durability. These complex two-phase phenomena (bubbly, slug, and stagnated regimes) lead to partial coverage of the active surface, increased overpotentials, and accelerated component degradation.

To overcome these bottlenecks, artificial intelligence represents a breakthrough innovation. Pioneering work carried out by Idriss Sinapan led to the development of deep learning-based bubble detection and recognition tools (YOLO), initially in single-class and then in multi-class configurations, combined with a transparent PEMWE cell and a high-resolution video acquisition system on the SysPacRevers test bench. These approaches have already enabled precise quantification of coverage rates, bubble counts, and flow dynamics, as well as the identification of counter-intuitive phenomena related to water flow rate and current density.

The H2-DurabilitAI project – Improving H2 system durability through AI, led by Idriss Sinapan as principal investigator, builds on this body of work. It aims to establish a comprehensive experimental database, develop an advanced AI pipeline (multi-class detection/segmentation, non-uniformity heat maps, bubble residence time estimation), and propose new component topologies and optimizations, in partnership with Fraunhofer ISE for experimental validation.

The H2-DurabilitAI project is funded by the European Union in the amount of €167,924.67 under the ERDF-ESF+ Réunion 2021–2027 programme, for which the Région Réunion serves as the Managing Authority. Europe is committed to La Réunion through ERDF funding. The Région Réunion supplements this funding with a national counterpart contribution.

This project strengthens local expertise in artificial intelligence applied to hydrogen and contributes to the decarbonization and energy resilience of the Réunion territory, while promoting open innovation through the public release of the database and the AI model on GitHub.