During the 6th International Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Vehicle Conference (FCVC 2021), Randy MacEwen, Chairman and CEO of Ballard Power Systems, and Yuan Yilin, Chairman of NBXY Industrial Group, sat at the signing stage. The two companies have reached a cooperation agreement under which NBXY will exclusively supply Ballard with related bipolar plate graphite materials.
While officially incorporating NBXY into the "Chinese Circle of Friends", the "localization" characteristics of Ballard's hydrogen fuel cell production chain in the Chinese market have become very obvious. Mai Kaiwen said, "The localization of technology and supply chain is very important."
The communication between NBXY and Ballard can be traced back more than ten years ago.
"In 2005, we had contact with Ballard. At that time, our company was making expanded graphene and supplying it to some companies in the United States and Germany." Yuan Yilin told us that in recent years, the double The pole plate has turned to the graphite technology path and is becoming more and more thin. NBXY has undertaken the research and development of this technology.
In 2016, NBXY began to provide self-developed bipolar plate graphite materials to Ballard's joint ventures in China. After that, the company supplied supplies to the joint venture between Weichai Power and Ballard, which further promoted the localization of fuel cells.
In China's hydrogen fuel supply chain, NBXY is somewhat low-key. But in the field of graphite materials, the company is strong. At the signing ceremony between Kaiwen Mai and Xinyuan, he referred to the other party as the "founder of China's expanded graphite industry", which is also the current recognition of NBXY in the field of graphite materials in China. Public information shows that NBXY has now mastered the entire industrial chain from graphite ore to finished product processing and production, and occupies a world-leading position in technologies such as purification, acidification, high temperature loss rate control of sealing materials, bipolar plate runner impurity control, and battery shielding.
NBXY's graphite materials were previously mainly supplied to the Chinese aerospace industry.
On May 15 this year, the landing patrol of the Tianwen-1 probe successfully landed on Mars. What NBXY provided was the seal of the hydrogen-oxygen cryogenic medium on the Long March 5 series carrier rocket that transported the Tianwen-1. In recent years, in the context of the national double carbon goal, the company has shifted its graphite production process to hydrogen fuel cells to provide graphite materials for the bipolar plates of the three core components of the stack.
"In the stack system, bipolar plates accounted for about 30% of the cost. When it was learned that bipolar plates have an important impact on the cost reduction of hydrogen fuel cells, he led the company to shift to the direction of graphite bipolar plate production. .
The technical route of bipolar plate includes two kinds of metal plate and graphite plate. These two technical routes have their own advantages and disadvantages, but in recent years, due to the advantages of graphite materials such as corrosion resistance, low cost, and long available time, graphite plates have occupied an important position in the bipolar plate market. "No one will replace anyone, there will be markets for both technical routes." Yuan Yilin believes that metal plates have certain limitations in terms of life and cost. In the Chinese hydrogen fuel market, graphite plates rely on resource acquisition and cost. The advantage will be more popular.
It is undeniable that among the various parts of the stack, the link with the highest degree of localization is the bipolar plate. This also means that in the bipolar board sector, competition is already fierce.
In addition, in the two new series of high-power autonomous hydrogen fuel cell engines released by another Chinese listed company Yihuatong for the first time in April this year, the stack components have been fully localized, and the bipolar plates used by it have been fully localized. It is a self-developed flexible graphite bipolar plate.