The  Physis PEB student team from Politecnico di Milano participated in the 11th Monaco Energy Boat Challenge, organised by the Yacht Club Monaco in the Principality of Monaco. The team consisted of over 30 students enrolled in various bachelor and master courses at Politecnico di Milano. As a multidisciplinary project, it requires engineering and other skills as well as management, interpersonal and communication skills.

The Monaco Energy Boat Challenge is a nautical competition focused on innovation and sustainability. Participants must explore new technologies, innovative materials and alternative propulsion systems that reduce environmental impact while maintaining nautical performance. This includes the use of solar, hydrogen, electricity and other renewable energy sources to power boats. The challenge encourages creative solutions that prioritise sustainability without compromising performance, and entrants must demonstrate their ideas through practical and feasible designs or prototypes, highlighting the potential positive impact of these innovations on the marine industry and the environment.

More than 50 teams took part this year, including 40 university teams from 25 countries. In addition to the four in-water competitions (speed, durability, manoeuvrability, head-to-head challenge), technical presentations are scheduled to assess the quality and impact of the projects.

The team’s boat, Ione 3.0, is a hybrid propulsion boat powered by a 4 kWh battery and hydrogen, which powers a 3 kW fuel cell. Due to weight constraints, the structure was designed and built by the team members in Politecnico’s facilities. The main material used is carbon fibre, but other fibres such as Kevlar, glass, flax and basalt are also used in smaller quantities. The engine is a 10 kW pod (supplied by Gardasolar) to which the team has added a counter-rotating propeller drive, entirely designed by the team and manufactured by the Chiaravalli workshop. The counter-rotating propellers were designed and manufactured by 3D printing in the laboratories of Politecnico di Milano, using a special carbon-filled filament developed in collaboration with Lati3D and produced in a limited edition only for Physis PEB. The energy flow control software developed by the students optimises the use of battery or fuel cell energy as required. An interesting feature is the ability to recharge the battery using the fuel cell.

In the competition, the Ione 3.0 achieved the best performance among boats with a battery-fuel cell hybrid system using hydrogen, and was the lightest prototype among them. The team finished eighth overall.

New for the 2024 edition of the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge is the introduction of the “Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Sustainable Yachting Technology Award”, which aims to recognise and support exceptional initiatives presented by universities or research institutes. The award aims to encourage revolutionary innovation in the yachting sector in line with the principles of sustainability, emission reduction and energy efficiency.

Politecnico di Milano won this prestigious award and received a grant of €25,000 for the Physis Synergy research project developed within the Physis PEB. The project focuses on the development of optimised channel geometry in fuel cells to improve their efficiency and performance. The funding will be used to develop the idea so that further innovations can be presented in future editions of the competition.

The team would like to thank Riccardo Mereu and Gianluca Valenti, lecturers at the Department of Energy, who guided them through all the design stages. A decisive contribution was also made by their colleagues at the Laboratory of Energy Conversion and Storage (LabX), Antonino Ravidá, Francesco Battistella and Thomas Dalberto, where the boat was tested in all its components, by their colleagues at the MRT Lab, Andrea Casalegno, Claudio Rabissi, Delio Casadei, Andrea Baricci and Amedeo Grimaldi, who provided support for the home-made hydrogen recirculation system of the fuel cells, and by their colleague Roberto Faranda, for his fundamental support in the electrical part.