Fuel cells: Mass production now possible

In the “H2FastCell” research project, a research team from Fraun­hofer IPA and the Black For­est Cam­pus is work­ing with an indus­tri­al con­sor­tium to devel­op a robot­ic cell for the auto­mat­ed high-speed assem­bly of fuel cell stacks. In doing so, they are lay­ing the foun­da­tion for indus­tri­al mass pro­duc­tion of this emis­sion-free tech­nol­o­gy. Hydro­gen will play an impor­tant role as an ener­gy car­ri­er. It can be pro­duced from renew­able ener­gies in elec­trol­y­sers in a CO2-neu­tral way and then con­vert­ed into elec­tri­cal ener­gy in fuel cells. Par­tic­u­lar­ly in freight trans­port, fuel cells can play out their advan­tages over bat­tery-elec­tric vehi­cles. But there are also many future areas of appli­ca­tion for fuel cells in the sta­tion­ary sec­tor. In the pro­duc­tion of fuel cells, effi­cient cycle times and absolute pre­ci­sion are crucial.

The major goal is to reduce man­u­fac­tur­ing costs in order to make the use of this tech­nol­o­gy more eco­nom­i­cal. How­ev­er, this can only be achieved through scal­ing effects, which require ful­ly auto­mat­ed plants with cor­re­spond­ing­ly high capac­i­ties. At the moment, this type of pro­duc­tion plant is not yet avail­able on the mar­ket, and the design of the com­po­nents must also con­tin­ue to be opti­mized with regard to automa­tion-com­pat­i­ble construction.

That’s why it makes sense to start look­ing now for ways to man­u­fac­ture them in an auto­mat­ed way that is suit­able for mass pro­duc­tion. This is pre­cise­ly what a research team from the Fraun­hofer Insti­tute for Man­u­fac­tur­ing Engi­neer­ing and Automa­tion IPA and the Cen­ter for Dig­i­tal­iza­tion, Lead­er­ship and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Black For­est (Black For­est Cam­pus) has set out to do in the “H2FastCell” project. Togeth­er with teams from five com­pa­nies, the sci­en­tists want to devel­op a robot­ic cell by 2023 that assem­bles the indi­vid­ual lay­ers of a fuel cell in sec­onds and with absolute precision.

13 minutes to the finished stack

A fuel cell stack con­sists of stacked lay­ers of bipo­lar plates, through which hydro­gen and oxy­gen are intro­duced, and mem­brane elec­trode units, in which the two chem­i­cal ele­ments react with each oth­er. Because this reac­tion only pro­duces a volt­age of one volt at most, about 400 fuel cells must be stacked on top of each oth­er for a fuel cell engine to pow­er a truck, for exam­ple. Pre­ci­sion is required here. Any devi­a­tion — even in the microm­e­ter range — can reduce the per­for­mance of the fuel cell system.

The assem­bly robot, which will take over the stack­ing of bipo­lar plates and mem­brane elec­trode units in alter­na­tion in the H2FastCell research project, will there­fore scan the indi­vid­ual lay­ers as it grips them. Since he stacks sev­er­al stacks in par­al­lel, he can spon­ta­neous­ly assign a lay­er to the stack on which the dimen­sions fit best. Per­for­mance degra­da­tions are thus avoid­ed before they occur. All this is sup­posed to hap­pen so fast that it will be dif­fi­cult for humans to fol­low the indi­vid­ual assem­bly steps with the naked eye: one sec­ond per lay­er. A stack com­posed of 400 indi­vid­ual fuel cells would there­fore be fin­ished after only about 13 min­utes. Man­u­al­ly, many times that time would be needed.

Prices for fuel cells could fall

“If the through­put of the stacks is increased in this way, it will lay the foun­da­tion for the indus­tri­al mass pro­duc­tion of fuel cells. Prices would fall and the use of fuel cells in mobile heavy-duty appli­ca­tions would final­ly become com­pet­i­tive,” says Friedrich-Wil­helm Speck­mann of the Cen­ter for Dig­i­tized Bat­tery Cell Pro­duc­tion at Fraun­hofer IPA. He and Erwin Groß from the Cor­po­rate Strat­e­gy and Devel­op­ment depart­ment at Fraun­hofer IPA are lead­ing the H2FastCell research project.

Demonstrator stacking facility at the Black Forest Campus.

By sum­mer 2023, the research team aims to have set up a demon­stra­tor stack­ing facil­i­ty for auto­mat­ed fuel cell assem­bly at the Schwarzwald Cam­pus in Freuden­stadt. This facil­i­ty will be avail­able to com­pa­nies for fur­ther tri­als, fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies and validations.

“With this first project, we are lay­ing the foun­da­tion for our future research cen­ter for bioin­tel­li­gent hydro­gen cycle man­age­ment in the Black For­est. With this, we want to make hydro­gen tech­nol­o­gy usable for mobile and sta­tion­ary use as an ener­gy car­ri­er togeth­er with com­pa­nies in Baden-Württemberg.”

- Ste­fan Bogen­rieder, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of the Black For­est Campus

The H2FastCell research project start­ed on July 26, 2021 and is sched­uled to run for two years. In addi­tion to Fraun­hofer IPA and the Black For­est Cam­pus, five com­pa­nies from Baden-Würt­tem­berg are involved: the soft­ware devel­op­er ISG Indus­trielle Steuerung­stech­nik GmbH from Stuttgart, the vac­u­um tech­nol­o­gy man­u­fac­tur­er J. Schmalz GmbH from Glat­ten in the north­ern Black For­est, the sen­sor pro­duc­er i‑mation GmbH from Rot­tweil, the machine and plant man­u­fac­tur­er teamtech­nik Maschi­nen und Anla­gen GmbH from Freiberg am Neckar, and the automa­tion engi­neer WEISS GmbH from Buchen in the Oden­wald. The Baden-Würt­tem­berg Min­istry of Eco­nom­ics, Labor and Tourism is fund­ing H2FastCell with around 2.3 mil­lion euros.