The second international conference on "Progress in MEA Materials for Medium and High Temperature Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells" (La Grande Motte, France 19-22 September 2010), spun-out from CARISMA, a European Coordination Action of Research on Intermediate and high temperature Specialised Membrane-electrode Assemblies, gathered European research expertise from industry, including SMEs, research organisations and universities. The conference brought together 242 fuel cell materials scientists from 21 countries and 4 continents.
The conference programme comprised invited lectures, oral contributions and two very well attended poster sessions where over 100 posters were presented and discussed. Progress and prospects in the fields of membrane materials, electrocatalysts and support materials were presented, and latest understanding of water and proton transport in fuel cell electrolyte materials was discussed. Advances in modelling and simulation approaches were explained, novel techniques for MEA characterisation introduced, and studies on component ageing and mitigation strategies for degradation were debated. In line with CARISMA's original objective of increasing the impact of Europe's funded projects, a special session was dedicated to output from the FP7 DECODE project on understanding the degradation-related effects of liquid water on proton exchange membrane fuel cells.