(Stuttgart / Freudenstadt) – The production of fuel cell stacks must be ramped up so that their costs should fall. A research team from the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Engineering and Automation IPA and the Center for Digitalization, Leadership and Sustainability Schwarzwald gGmbH (Black Forest Campus) want to work together to advance their industrial mass production. To do this, they are developing a robot for automated high-speed assembly with an industrial consortium as part of a project called “H2FastCell”.
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 elements react with each other. “Because this reaction only creates a voltage of a maximum of one volt, around 400 fuel cells have to be stacked on top of each other for a fuel cell engine that is supposed to power a truck, for example,” explain the scientists at the Black Forest campus. This process (stacking) requires high precision and accounts for a large part of the time required for the assembly process. The aim of the research work is to be able to assemble “the individual layers of a fuel cell in a matter of seconds,” according to the researchers.
Reduce manufacturing costs
The technology should reduce manufacturing costs in the long term in order to make its use more economical. However, this can only be achieved through scaling effects, which require fully automated systems with correspondingly high capacities. This type of production system is currently not yet available on the market and the design of the components must continue to be optimized with a view to a design suitable for automation.
“If the throughput of the stacks is increased to this extent, the basis for the industrial mass production of fuel cells is laid. Prices would fall and the use of fuel cells in mobile heavy-duty applications would finally become competitive,” says Friedrich-Wilhelm Speckmann from the Center for Digitalized Battery Cell Production at Fraunhofer IPA. He and Erwin Groß from the Corporate Strategy and Development Department at Fraunhofer IPA lead the “H2FastCell” research project.
A demonstrator stacking system for automated fuel cell assembly is scheduled to be built at the Black Forest campus in Freudenstadt by summer 2023. This is then available to companies for further tests, feasibility studies and validations.
On the industrial side, five companies from Baden-Württemberg are participating: the software developer ISG Industrielle Regelstechnik GmbH from Stuttgart, the vacuum technology manufacturer J. Schmalz GmbH from Glatten in the northern Black Forest, the sensor manufacturer I-mation GmbH from Rottweil, the machine and system manufacturer Teamtechnik Maschinen und Anlagen GmbH from Freiberg am Neckar and the automation technician Weiss GmbH from Buchen im Odenwald. The Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Economics, Labor and Tourism is funding “H2FastCell” with around 2,3 million euros.
deep link
https://www.ipa.fraunhofer.de/de/referenzprojekte/H2FastCell.html
https://www.campus-schwarzwald.de/campus-news/detail/massenproduktion-von-brennstoffzellen-wird-moeglich
Photos
The research team at the Black Forest Campus in Freudenstadt wants to build a demonstrator stacking system for automated fuel cell assembly by summer 2023. © Campus Black Forest
