Metal plate enterprises "fast forward"

With the dual help of technological upgrading and market demand, the power of metal bipolar plates is gradually increasing. According to the data released by the Institute of Hydrogen and Electricity (GGII) of Gaogong Industry and Research Institute, in 2021, the shipment volume of hydrogen fuel cell metal plate stacks in the Chinese market will be 354MW, accounting for 47% of the total shipments, and the metal bipolar plate will form a situation of two parts with the graphite (composite) bipolar plate by virtue of the growth of the amount of metal plate stack.

"The growth in the amount of metal plate stacks has a lot to do with the improvement of metal plate durability and the improvement of downstream market recognition." Zhang Jian, deputy general manager of hydrogen energy tomorrow, told Gaogong Hydrogen Electric that more and more metal plate stacks have entered the demonstration operation, and the solid data accumulation confirms the reliability of the metal plate and can meet the needs of long-term field operation.

In addition to increasing market share in the field of automotive fuel cells, metal plates have also begun to expand the rapidly rising market for electrolysis water hydrogen production equipment. Shanghai Zhizhen, a leading domestic metal plate enterprise, has achieved external supply of electrolyzer plates and electrolyzer products for ultra-thin plate stamping technology, and companies such as Sanjia Machinery and Boyuan New Energy are also continuing to increase the metal plate business, and the momentum of metal plate continuous upward has been sharp.

Metal plate durability is greatly improved

Vehicle fuel cells have come to the era of high power or even super power, at the same time, the industry is facing the strict requirements for consistency, reliability, stability and low cost when automotive-grade parts are facing large-scale mass production.

The improved durability of sheet metal stacks is one of the main reasons for the expansion of their market share. Since last year, many domestic and foreign enterprises have made major breakthroughs in the durability of metal plate stacks, and the durability of metal plate stacks in some enterprises has achieved a "big leap" from 5,000 hours to 10,000 hours or even 30,000 hours.

In October last year, United Fuel Cell System R&D (Beijing) Co., Ltd. and Huafeng Fuel Cell Co., Ltd. unveiled their "TLPower100", a fuel cell system developed and produced for commercial vehicles in China. Through the localization of the system product in China, the industry's top 711W/kg, 4.9kW/L high power density (rated power 101kW) and 30,000 hours of ultra-long durability. Its stack and metal plates come from Toyota, and the durability of 30,000 hours is almost comparable to the performance of the best graphite stacks at present.

Toyota stack into the Chinese market, obviously also stimulate the domestic metal plate stack manufacturers to accelerate the technical upgrading of products, a number of domestic metal plate stack independent brands have also made great progress in durability.

In January this year, Hydrogen Chen Technology officially released the 230kW stack, the redesigned product adopts a new modular design concept, the power density reaches 6.0kW/L, the stack material system, structural design and manufacturing mode has been innovated, and the durability of the metal plate can exceed 15,000 hours.

"At this stage, the durability of the sheet metal stack can reach more than 10,000 hours, meeting the life requirements of commercial vehicles of 5 years and 200,000 kilometers; in the future, it will be further improved to more than 15,000 to 20,000 hours to meet the service life requirements of more than 8 years." Bai Yunfei, deputy general manager of Hydrogen Chen Technology, said that the short board of corrosion resistance of metal plates has been made up, and there is still room for further improvement in the future through the cooperation of various parts of the whole pile, system and even the whole vehicle.

Coatings are the key to breaking through durability

In the production and manufacture of metal plates, such as mold opening, stamping, coating, packaging, etc., the cost of the coating link is the highest, accounting for about 50% of the cost of the entire metal plate, and the coating technology has become the core index affecting the life of the metal plate to a large extent, and it is also the key to improving the durability of the metal plate stack.

The main domestic metal plate and stack manufacturers use the "stainless steel + coating" scheme, and according to the different coating materials, it is further divided into "stainless steel + carbon-based coating" and "stainless steel + composite metal coating" two categories. "Stainless steel + carbon-based coating" program in the process of testing, to improve the durability of metal plates significant effect, several domestic companies in the metal plate durability breakthroughs are related to carbon-based coatings.

During the National Day holiday last year, Shanghai Zhizhen launched a new carbon-coated metal plate product, which reduced the cost of the plate by 40%-50% while extending the life expectancy of the metal plate fuel cell engine to more than 20,000 hours. After the company built a metal plate production line with an annual output of tens of millions of pieces in 2021 and crossed the threshold of mass production of vehicle-grade parts, the company's single customer single product supply and mass production has exceeded one million pieces in 2021.

Changzhou Yimai also adopts the "stainless steel + carbon-based coating" scheme. Changzhou Yimai, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ji Chong Hydrogen Energy, has completed the fourth generation of pro coating technology upgrade, and the corrosion current of its metal plate has been further reduced from 50μA/c㎡to 5μA/c㎡, and the high potential corrosion resistance has been increased by 10 times.

Among the metal plate stack enterprises that adopt the "stainless steel + composite metal coating" scheme, tomorrow's hydrogen energy is one of the more prominent performances. "The durability of sheet metal stacks can only be truly reflected in actual operation." Zhang Jian said that as of now, the single stack of hydrogen energy tomorrow has been loaded and run for more than 140,000 kilometers, the cumulative actual operation of the actual vehicle is more than 11,000 hours, and the life of the stack is attenuated within 5%.

Metal plate application extends to electrolyzed water to produce hydrogen

In addition to increasing market share in the field of automotive fuel cells, metal plates have also begun to expand the rapidly rising market for electrolysis water hydrogen production equipment.

"In the field of green hydrogen applications, Shanghai Zhizhen has begun to sell PEM electrolyzers with a maximum of 50Nm/h in a single tank after launching its own ultra-thin plate stamping technology in June last year with high-efficiency plate and electrolyzer products for electrolyzers." Lan Shuhuai, general manager of Shanghai Zhizhen, revealed the new progress of its metal plates in the field of electrolysis water hydrogen production equipment at a recent forum.

In the company's Changshu mass production base, Shanghai Zhizhen has launched the construction of the first "photovoltaic + green hydrogen energy storage demonstration project", using a PEM electrolyzer with completely its own technology, and is expected to complete the project construction in the first half of this year.

Also expanding the field of PEM water electrolysis hydrogen production equipment is Sanjia Machinery. Pan Hong, deputy general manager of Sanjia Machinery, said that the technical substrate produced by the company is being tested and verified by downstream customers and is expected to be supplied this year.

The market for hydrogen production equipment for electrolysis of water is rapidly emerging, and the field has also spawned a strong demand for metal plates.

According to the statistics of the Hydrogen and Electricity Research Institute (GGII), the market size of China's electrolyzed water hydrogen production equipment will exceed 900 million yuan in 2021, and the shipment volume will exceed 350MW. In 2022, China's market demand for electrolyzed water hydrogen production equipment is expected to reach 730MW, nearly doubling compared with 2021; in 2025, the domestic market demand for electrolyzed water hydrogen production equipment will exceed 2GW, an increase of more than 6 times compared with 2020.

In the context of "double carbon", the call for the development of green hydrogen is increasingly high, electrolyzed water hydrogen production is ushering in a new round of development opportunities, it is expected that the future demand for large-scale PEM water electrolysis hydrogen production equipment will further increase, which also brings new opportunities to domestic metal plate enterprises.

Below, the specific achievements and performance of some metal bipolar plate companies in 2021 are highlighted, from which we can glimpse the current technical level and market characteristics in this field:

Shanghai Zhizhen

Founded in 2016, Shanghai Zhizhen is the first national high-tech enterprise focusing on the research and development and manufacture of hydrogen fuel cell metal bipolar plates. The company's core technology originates from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, after 16 years of refined research and innovation, it has the key core technology of completely independent intellectual property rights in the design of plate configuration, ultra-thin plate precision forming and high-speed laser welding, high-performance composite nano-coating and integrated sealing, etc., and has reached the international first-class metal plate design and manufacturing capabilities.

Up to now, Shanghai Zhizhen has developed 7 generations of metal bipolar plates with independent intellectual property rights, and mastered the key independent core technology of "full process chain integration", realized the large-scale mass production and supply to domestic core OEMs and stack enterprises, and became the "responsibility" of domestic metal plate technical strength. In March 2021, Shanghai Zhizhen's annual output of 10 million pieces of metal plate production line was put into production in Changshu City, which is currently the world's largest metal plate production line, and marks the mainland hydrogen fuel cell automobile industry from the research and development stage into a large-scale demonstration application period.

During 2021, Shanghai Zhizhen also launched a new carbon-coated metal plate product, which will reduce the cost of the plate by 40%-50% while extending the life expectancy of the metal plate fuel cell engine to more than 20,000 hours. The biggest breakthrough of this metal bipolar plate is the use of the latest carbon coating technology, which can effectively improve the life of the plate and reduce costs, and at this stage, the technology has a large-scale mass production capacity of millions of pieces, laying the foundation for promoting the rapid cost reduction of the fuel cell industry.

Sanjia Machinery

Sanjia Machinery was established in Shanghai in 2005, and in 2007, through cooperation with the Shanghai Aerospace Space Power Supply Research Institute (811 Research Institute), it developed a hydrogen fuel cell titanium alloy monopole plate, becoming one of the earliest enterprises involved in fuel cell metal plates in China. After continuous technical iteration, Sanjia Machinery has successfully delivered more than 80 metal bipolar plates of different runner forms, mainly titanium alloy, SUS316L, etc., material thickness of 0.075-0.1mm, titanium alloy material runner depth up to 0.45, SUS316L material runner depth of 0.5±0.01, runner cycle of 1.0/1.1/1.25/1.4/1.6/1.8/2.0mm, runner-to-channel uniformity ≤± 0.01mm, runner height uniformity ≤±0.015mm, bipolar plate warpage <2mm.

Sanjia Machinery currently has a plant area of 7,000 square meters, with high-precision stamping forming, laser welding, ultrasonic cleaning, air tightness detection and other bipolar plate production equipment, with an annual output of 2 million bipolar plates production capacity; has a high-precision high-speed machining center, wire cutting, EDM, grinding machine and other mold processing equipment, with an annual output of 50 sets of bipolar plate molds; also has five-axis machining centers, horizontal machining centers, vertical machining centers, drilling and milling tapping centers and other mechanical processing equipment, for stack housing, end plates, Processing of manifolds and other components.

Boyuan New Energy

Boyuan New Energy, full name "Boyuan (Shandong) New Energy Technology Development Co., Ltd.", the parent company is the leading enterprise in the bearing industry, Shandong Jindi Precision. Based on the parent company's deep accumulation in precision manufacturing, Boyuan New Energy has been able to provide customers with customized fuel cell plate solutions (including design and matching) in only one year since its establishment, and the metal bipolar plate launched can meet the needs of high-power stacks of more than 150kW.

The coating used in Boyuan New Energy Metal Bipolar Plate is a non-precious metal coating, which can effectively reduce manufacturing costs; the product also has the advantages of low contact resistance and strong corrosion resistance, the technical indicators far exceed the DOE requirements, and the durability can reach 10000-15000h.

At present, the company has assembled a batch production line of metal bipolar plates, with a production capacity of 60 to 1 million pairs / year (follow-up production capacity is gradually increased, it is expected to reach 6 million pairs / year in 2023-2024), with high-precision stamping molding, laser welding, surface coating, injection molding seals, air tightness testing and other bipolar plate production equipment.