The German Autostack-Industrie project (vehicle fuel cell-industrial application project, hereinafter referred to as ASI) aims to push the key production technology of fuel cells to the stage of industrial application.
The project is based on the manufacturing process of the automotive industry, in accordance with APQP (Advanced Product Quality Planning) standards, to carry out the research and development of fuel cell metal bipolar plates and the development of fuel cell mass production processes to meet the quality and cost requirements of the automotive industry.
The project has a budget of 60 million euros. A total of 11 companies and R & D institutions participated in the cooperation, including BMW, Daimler, Ford, Volkswagen and Audi and other vehicle manufacturers. Powercell is the only fuel cell manufacturer in the project.
PowerCell is mainly responsible for two sub-projects, fuel cell design and development of fuel cell mass production process. Compared with manual stacking in the laboratory, mass stacking of fuel cells needs to maintain extremely high accuracy. A deviation of 1 mm may cause short-circuiting of the stack and gas leakage.
The high-precision stacking process designed and developed by PowerCell can achieve a stacking deviation of less than 0.1mm in a single stack (within 500 wafers). Fuel cell performance testing requires more than 100 test processes such as durability, shock resistance, cold start, etc. At present, the stack designed by PowerCell has been used by 5 OEMs in the project for testing.
The ASI project was launched in 2017, aiming to achieve three goals by the end of 2021: develop high-performance fuel cells suitable for the automotive industry, achieve higher power density, and low platinum load to meet the target cost of the automotive industry; use economies of scale and standardize Fuel cell standards and interfaces, expand output power, and build a shared technology platform; through screening and evaluation of key processes to achieve mass production capacity, the plant is planned to produce 10,000 to 30,000 units per year.
"The ASI project promotes the commercialization of fuel cell technology in the automotive industry." Per Ekdunge, founder of PowerCell and chief operating officer of the German branch, said, "Fuel cells not only generate electricity, but also emit only water. The project represents the transportation industry Take an important step towards sustainable development. "