«Clean Technologies» - an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal of scientific research on technology development aiming to reduce the environmental impact of human activities, published by MDPI. - has assigned the Best Paper Award to a paper, fruitful collaboration between Mat4En2 Lab and European Commission's Joint Research Centre in Petten (NL).

The study exploresPFAS-free alternatives to Nafion® for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), focusing on three innovative graphene-oxide-based membranes. Through a comprehensive functional and environmental assessment—including proton conductivity, thermal stability, mechanical performance, and life cycle assessment (LCA)—the work identifies sulfonated graphene oxide (SGO) as a promising candidate that outperforms Nafion® in key properties while offering a potentially lower hashtag#environmental_footprint upon scale up.

Functional and Environmental Performances of Novel Electrolytic Membranes for PEM Fuel Cells: A Lab-Scale Case Study

Matteo Di Virgilio, Andrea Basso Peressut, Valeria Arosio, Alessandro Arrigoni, Saverio Latorrata and Giovanni Dotelli

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