On October 26, China’s leading high-temperature fuel cell stack industrialization technology company, ZJQB Hydrogen Energy Technology Co., Ltd. announced that the company has completed the "first generation of new flat-tube structure solid oxide fuel cell kilowatt-class stack" Prototype development. At present, the company is actively building a reactor R&D pilot line, and intends to realize the automated production of two reactor products.
SOFC (Solid Oxide Fuel Cell), or solid oxide fuel cell, is a branch of fuel cell. The fuel cell is a chemical device that directly converts the chemical energy of the fuel into electrical energy. It is considered to be a new disruptive power generation technology following hydropower, thermal power generation and atomic power generation. Among them, because of its outstanding advantages such as high power generation efficiency, long life, low cost, and wide fuel adaptability, SOFC has broad application prospects and development in the fields of distributed power generation, combined heat and power, extended-range vehicles, drones, and ships. The potential is huge.
In the past 10 years, SOFC technology has entered the preliminary stage of commercial application in developed countries represented by the United States and Japan, and is ushering in an explosive period. As of 2019, more than 50,000 sets of SOFC distributed heat and power systems have been installed in the Japanese market; Bloom Energy, FuelCell Energy, and LG Fuel Cell Systems in the United States have also successfully demonstrated and run 50~250kW SOFC distributed power generation systems; some European countries have also successively Launched a 1~5 kW SOFC distributed combined heat and power system and launched market applications. The above products are still in the verification operation stage in China.
And ZJQB is a SOFC stack R&D and manufacturing enterprise that hopes to narrow the gap between China's high-temperature fuel cell technology and developed countries and catch up with the international advanced level.
ZJQB first-generation kilowatt SOFC stack was successfully developed
As early as 2015, the core founding technical team of ZJQB proposed a new type of flat-tube structure battery technology route. Compared with traditional fuel cells of flat plate type and tube type, the battery has the characteristics of strong stability, low cost, high temperature resistance, and less integration difficulty.
With this technology as the core, the team and Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen) carried out a battery structure optimization design based on the multi-field coupling theory. At the same time, a ceramic manufacturing company developed a battery molding preparation technology based on an extrusion molding process, realizing a flat tube Small batch production of type structure battery.
In view of the performance degradation, process complexity, high temperature chemical compatibility and other problems in the commercialization of SOFC systems, the technical team has continuously optimized and innovated, solved many technical problems, and successfully developed the first generation of solid oxidation based on new structures in the near future. Thousand-watt fuel cell stack.
The stack uses a unique flat tube structure battery. Compared with the traditional flat structure battery, the anti-destructive load strength is increased by 20 times. The number of thermal cycles of the battery stack unit is increased to more than 100 while the performance remains stable. It supports CH4, methanol, and ethanol. , Coke oven gas, ammonia and other fuels to generate electricity, and electrolysis of CO2 to produce CO broke the 2000-hour mark.
At the same time, in terms of manufacturing process, its team uses advanced ceramic processing technology and uses cheap metal oxides as raw materials to greatly reduce the manufacturing costs of powder and slurry, which is conducive to mass production of products.
KW-class stack based on the first-generation battery
A five-year plan to develop and build a 100kW-class single SOFC stack module in 2025
In the past 20 years, China's SOFC technology research and development has been mainly concentrated in the laboratory, and related infrastructure and market applications are still in their infancy.
In order to realize the industrialization of SOFC technology, ZJQB successively established a simulation and structural design R&D center with Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), and established R&D and manufacturing centers for batteries and key components of batteries and other scientific research units such as Ningbo Institute of Materials of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Industrial ceramic technology research institutes and suppliers have established raw material and battery manufacturing bases to promote the development of "integration of production, education and research" of SOFC technology by opening up the upstream and downstream industrial chains.
At present, the company's product line is gradually entering the stage of large-scale landing: A60 battery has achieved stable mass production, A130 battery quality inspection module has completed the design and equipment selection; the stack has completed the design of different power modules such as 100W~25KW, of which 1KW The power generation module has completed the development of the first-generation prototype prototype, and the 5kW power generation module has entered the research and development stage, and the assembly process has been opened up.
In terms of application scenarios, ZJQB products are now mainly used for distributed power generation in stationary fields, such as natural gas power generation; hydrogen production by electrolysis of water combined with renewable energy; and the "electric and hydrogen dual" of new energy electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles. "Supply" type of comprehensive energy supply.
ZJQBCEO revealed to Hay Think that the company will implement a stepped development strategy in the next 5 years. "In 2021, the company will launch 1kW and 5KW stack products and complete the pilot test of stack lines; launch 10-25KW stack products in 2022-2023, and at the same time create demonstration cases for downstream applications; in 2025, build 100kW-level static power generation Stack modules, and realize the mass production and shipment of a full range of stack products. By then, the annual capacity of the stack will exceed 10 MW."
Currently, ZJQB is preparing for the second round of financing, which will be used for the construction of a mass production manufacturing base with an annual output of 500-1000 sets of 5-10kW high temperature fuel cell stacks.