Overcoming the Challenges for a Mass Manufacturing Machine for the Assembly of PEMFC Stacks

Abstract

One of the major obstacles standing in the way of a break-through in fuel cell technology is its relatively high costs compared to well established fossil-based technologies. The reasons for these high costs predominantly lie in the use of non-standardized components, complex system components, and non-automated production of fuel cells. This problem can be identified at multiple levels, for example, the electrochemically active components of the fuel cell stack, peripheral components of the fuel cell system, and eventually on the level of stack and system assembly. This article focused on the industrialization of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack components and assembly. To achieve this, the first step is the formulation of the requirement specifications for the automated PEMFC stack production. The developed mass manufacturing machine (MMM) enables a reduction of the assembly time of a cell fuel cell stack to 15 minutes. Furthermore the targeted automation level is theoretically capable of producing up to 10,000 fuel cell stacks per year. This will result in a ~50% stack cost reduction through economies of scale and increased automation. The modular concept is scalable to meet increasing future demand which is essential for the market ramp-up and success of this technology.

An Energy Management Strategy and Parameter Optimization of Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles

“…The circuit principle of the internal resistance model is shown in Figure 2. In order to meet the voltage level required by the motor drive and meet the minimum capacity within the working range, a seriesparallel structure is adopted to form a battery pack [23]. The SOCbat and Vbat can be calculated as follows [24]:…”

Optimized High Precision Stacking of Fuel Cell Components for Medium to Large Production Volumes

“…The seal can be applied onto the bipolar plate (seal-on BPP) or on the GDL (seal-on GDL) [1]. Figure 1 shows the important steps in fuel cell stack production with a seal-on GDL approach as also described in Stahl [1], Porstmann et al [2].…”

“…There have been several research projects investigating fuel cell stack assembly with seal-on GDL such as MontaBS [7,8]. and Fit-4-AMandA [2], however there is only little information on the assembly system itself and its core components. Numerous patents, such as Dreier [9], Munthe [10], HoKyun and Yoon [11] suggest that more attention is being paid to fuel cell stack assembly in an industrial environment.…”

“…All the assembly systems mentioned above feature vacuum or low pressure grippers for handling the components in pick and place operations. Especially the gripping of the individual CCM and the porous GDL, that are not preassembled, have not been investigated yet, although being relevant for a seal-on GDL approach as mentioned in Porstmann et al [2].…”

“…With pre-developed production modules for a successive expansion a wide range of steps in the process chain can be covered. In Porstmann et al [2] this is resolved by a high degree of specialisation, so that each task is assigned to a single handling system. The approach presented in Bobka et al [4] is capable of doing several operations, but can only grasp pre-assembled MEA.…”