Methodological and practical lessons learned from exploring the material criticality of two hydrogen-related products

As the European Union embarks on the energy transition, several challenges need to be faced to ensure that this shift is conducted from a holistic perspective that avoids burden-shifting across sustainability dimensions. One of the main concerns refers to the future availability of materials that clean technologies require. Critical raw material assessment serves to guide the management of such mineral resources in a new paradigm of increasing demand. This work delves into the methodological fundamentals of several product-level criticality indicators in order to discuss their implications within the context of the ecodesign of two hydrogen-related products. Overall, criticality is advised to be assessed making use of several indicators. In the case study of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack, the combined interpretation of criticality indicators leads to identifying platinum as the main hotspot, while yttrium and lanthanum account for the most relevant criticality contributions in the case study of a solid oxide electrolysis cell stack.