# How to reduce by 2 the manufacturing time of on-board 70 MPa H2 CPV

Stéphane Villalonga, Sebastien Livi, Jannick Duchet-Rumeau, Jean-François

Gérard, Frédéric Demaret, Bruno Fournel

► To cite this version:

Stéphane Villalonga, Sebastien Livi, Jannick Duchet-Rumeau, Jean-François Gérard, Frédéric Demaret, et al.. How to reduce by 2 the manufacturing time of on-board 70 MPa H2 CPV. WHEC 2024 - The 24th World Hydrogen Energy Conference, International Association for Hydrogen Energy (IAHE), Jun 2024, Tulum, Mexico. hal-05469990

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Submitted on 21 Jan 2026

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# How to reduce by 2 the manufacturing time of on-board 70 MPa H2 CPV.

Stéphane Villalonga¹, Sebastien Livi², Jannick Duchet-Rumeau², Jean-François Gérard², Frédéric Demaret³, Bruno Fournel¹

¹CEA, Monts, France. ²INSA, Lyon, France. ³Vitech Composites, Sainte Maure de Touraine, France

## Title

How to reduce by 2 the manufacturing time of on-board 70 MPa H2 CPV.

## Abstract

Land transport is a major contributor to global CO2 emissions (14%). To reduce its impact, vehicles powered by hydrogen (H2) are being marketed. However, these vehicles are 2 to 3 times more expensive than fossil fuel vehicles, and take too long time to be manufactured at mass production level.

The time required to complete all the stages in manufacturing a 62L 70MPa CPV is around 17 hours. Among the manufacturing stages, the duration of the heating stage for curing the epoxy resin of the composite material of the tank is around 15 hours. The Fastcure 2 project aims to significantly reduce this manufacturing time.

The French National Research Agency (ANR) Fastcure 2 project is a collaborative industrial research project from the formulation of a new material to its implementation and the carrying out of international regulatory performance tests on high pressure tanks. The project consortium is made up of an academic partner, INSA Lyon, a specialist in polymers (team of Jannick Duchet-Rumeau and Jean-François Gérard), an industrial partner, Vitech Composites, manufacturer of high-performance composite materials (Frédéric Démarret) and the high pressure tanks research team of the CEA at Monts in France. The project started on January 1, 2020 for a duration of 42 months and a budget of €807 thousand with aid from the ANR of €434 thousand.

To reduce thick composite curing time at low temperature, Fastcure 2 partners have developed a new epoxy resin formulation allowing reduce the heat released by the chemical reaction of polymerization of the resin. As a result, chemical reactions could be accelerated and curing time reduced.

To achieve this objective, the CEA defined the resin specifications, specifying the desired properties, the conditions of use (manufacturing) and the expected tank performance (ultimate tank resistance to internal pressure, thousands of tank fill-drain tests). On this basis, researchers at INSA Lyon selected several epoxy resins and ionic liquids to cure the resin with limited heat release. A series of physico-chemical and mechanical analyses were carried
out in the laboratory to select the best formulations. The formulations were passed on to Vitech Composites and the CEA for manufacture of the composite material and 700-bar composite tanks using the filament winding process widely used in the tank industry. The reduction in curing times was measured during the manufacturing stage. Once the tanks had been manufactured, regulatory tests (R134 international regulations) of internal pressurization up to bursting were carried out to verify the tank's robustness, up to pressures in excess of 1,400 bar, as well as thousands of tank filling cycles between 2 and 87.5 MPa.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>figure: CEA's robotized filament winding process deposits carbon fibers impregnated with the fast-curing ionic liquid-based epoxy resin from the ANR Fastcure 2 project for the manufacture of high-pressure tanks for on-board storage of gaseous hydrogen</figcaption></figure>

Two formulations adapted to the two variants of composite manufacturing were developed and patented. One formulation for the wet process most widely used by manufacturers, and one for the semi-product towpreg process. Heating time was reduced by 55% (from 15:00 to 6:45) and overall tank manufacturing time by around 50% (from 17:10 to 8:55). The high-pressure vessels manufactured passed the ultimate strength tests and were cycled up to 2,500 times without failure.

**Keywords**

CPV; Manufacturing; Resin

**References**
[1] M.A.M. Rhamathullah, A. Jeyarajasingam, B. Merritt, M. Vanlandingham, S.H. McKnight, G.R. Palmese, Macromolecules, 2009, 42, 3219-3221. [2] A.A. Silva, S. Livi, D.B. Netto, B.G. Soares, J. Duchet-Rumeau, J.F. Gérard, Polymer, 2013, 54, 2123-2129. [3] S. Livi, A.A. Silva, Y. thimont, B.G. Soares, T.K.L. Nguyen, J-F. Gérard, J. Duchet-Rumeau, RSC Advances, 2014, 4, 28099-28106. [4] T.K.L. Nguyen, S. Livi, S. Pruvost, B.G. Soares, J-F. Gérard, J. Duchet-Rumeau, Journal of Polymer Science Part A: Polymer Chemistry, 2014, 52 (24), 3463-3471. [5] T.K.L. Nguyen, S. Livi, B.G. Soares, S. Pruvost, J. Duchet-Rumeau, J-F. Gérard, ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, 2016, 4, 481-490. [6] R. Sonnier, L. Dumazert, S. Livi, T.K.L. Nguyen, J. Duchet-Rumeau, H. Vahabi, P. Laheurte, Polymer Degradation and Stability, 134, 186-193 (2016). [7] T.K.L. Nguyen, S. Livi, B.G. Soares, H. Benes, J-F. Gérard, J. Duchet-Rumeau, ACS Sustainable Chem Eng, 5, 1153-1164, (2017). [8] T.K.L. Nguyen, B.G. Soares, J. Duchet-Rumeau, S. Livi, Composites Science and Technology, 140, 30-38, (2017).

**Acknowledgements**

CEA, INSA Lyon and Vitech Composite partners acknowledge the French National Research Agency (ANR) for its financial support.

**Categories**

Track 7. Hydrogen Storage

**Type of Presentation**

Oral

**Permission to publish**

Yes

**Author approval**

Yes

**Author will attend**

Yes