What are the core technical shortcomings of hydrogen CR1632 battery?

According to foreign media reports, Nissan announced that it would suspend its plan to cooperate with Daimler and Ford to develop fuel cell vehicles, and focus on the development of electric vehicles. The once popular hydrogen fuel cell technology has encountered development obstacles in its home base of Japan.

Coincidentally, Ford Motor also issued a statement on June 13 that its fuel cell joint venture with Daimler in Burnaby, British Columbia will be closed in the summer of 2018. However, separation and reunion are common in business. While they are busy breaking up, Audi and Hyundai announced that they have reached a patent cross-licensing agreement to jointly develop hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

Compared with the technical route of pure electric vehicles, why have hydrogen fuel cell vehicles caused such great controversy internationally? To solve this problem, we must not only understand the technical problems and challenges of hydrogen fuel cells, but also understand the motivations behind the promotion of this technology by governments of various countries.

Why are hydrogen fuel cell vehicles repeatedly "abandoned"?

From a technical point of view, a fuel cell is an energy conversion device. Unlike ordinary batteries, a hydrogen fuel cell is an electrochemical device that combines hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity, water and heat. The waste produced by the reaction is mainly water, in addition to trace amounts of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides. The efficiency of fuel cells is 2-3 times higher than that of simple combustion of hydrogen, and it is quiet and pollution-free.

However, why are fuel cell vehicles with so many advantages still "abandoned" by many car companies? This starts with the hydrogen energy industry chain.

The entire hydrogen energy industry chain consists of hydrogen preparation, hydrogen storage, transportation and filling, and hydrogen application. Among them, hydrogen preparation is the basis of hydrogen energy application, hydrogen storage, transportation and filling are the core guarantee of hydrogen energy application, and applications in different directions are the main ways and best forms of hydrogen energy practical application. According to the different positions in the industrial chain, enterprises in the chain can be roughly divided into three parts:

Upstream, mainly including the production and transportation of hydrogen resources;

Midstream, for fuel cell systems, mainly stacks and hydrogen storage equipment and accessories;

Downstream, is the application sector, including hydrogen stations, new energy vehicle applications, etc.

After distinguishing these three links, let's take a look at the problems and challenges faced by each part:

1. Key technologies are difficult to overcome

People who understand the components of fuel cell stacks will be familiar with the core technology of fuel cells - "proton exchange membrane". However, as of now, there is no other company in the world that can commercially supply proton exchange membrane materials for hydrogen fuel cells except DuPont in the United States. There is also a company in Japan that can also produce it, but for well-known reasons, this company refuses to sell the product to any country.

2. Excessive cost

1. The relatively independent and complex power system of fuel cell vehicles directly leads to an increase in the cost of fuel cell vehicles. For example: Toyota Mirai is priced at US$69,000, which is much higher than other vehicles of the same level with other power forms.

2. Data shows that at present, it takes more than 10 million yuan to build a hydrogen refueling station with a hydrogen refueling capacity of more than 200 kilograms. Such a high construction cost is obviously the biggest obstacle to the rapid development of hydrogen refueling stations.

3. Under current technical conditions, the catalyst for hydrogen fuel cells is platinum. Platinum has a very low global production and is expensive (about twice that of gold). The global annual production is about 200 tons, and 60% is also used as jewelry materials. Moreover, platinum as a catalyst has high requirements for hydrogen purity, which needs to reach more than 99.99%.

3. Safety issues

Behind the hydrogenation of fuel cells, a complete set of hydrogen energy production and transportation networks is needed as support. The safety issues of hydrogen itself, the safety of hydrogen fuel filling and the safety issues during operation need to be solved. Generally speaking, the hydrogen storage device of the hydrogen refueling station should meet the requirements of being able to withstand high pressure, having online monitoring functions, automatic alarm in case of danger, and good economic efficiency. Obviously, the initial construction cost of a hydrogen refueling station that meets these requirements will not be low.

Domestic fuel cell support policies have been introduced one after another, but they are still not favored by experts

Thanks to the favorable policies and support of the country, China's fuel cell vehicle technology has initially mastered the core technologies of complete vehicles, power systems and core components, and has basically established a fuel cell car and fuel cell city bus power system technology platform with independent intellectual property rights.

In terms of industrial chain matching, my country has initially formed a supporting research and development system for key components such as fuel cell engines, power batteries, DC/DC converters, drive motors, and hydrogen supply systems, and has achieved a production capacity of hundreds of power systems and complete vehicles. At present, it has the technical characteristics of "power system platform vehicle adaptation, electric-electric hybrid energy power control, on-board high-pressure hydrogen storage system, and industrial by-product hydrogen purification and utilization".

During the "12th Five-Year Plan", Tongji University, FAW Group, Dongfeng Motor, Chery Automobile and Changan Automobile built fuel cell cars respectively. On June 14, 2018, Tongji University, Jiaxing Municipal Government and Jiaxing Xiuzhou District Government signed a contract at Tongji University in Shanghai to jointly build a new energy vehicle industrial base project. The three parties will jointly promote the establishment of a new energy vehicle research and development and production project in Xiuzhou District, Jiaxing City.

The new energy vehicle industrial base includes the following four parts: (i) Tongji University (Jiaxing) New Energy Vehicle Research Institute. (ii) Commercial vehicle and passenger vehicle production and manufacturing base. (iii) Hydrogen energy industry base. (iv) Hydrogen energy application project. Among them, the New Energy Vehicle Research Institute, as a secondary non-independent legal person research institution of Tongji University, will have five R&D centers: Hydrogen Fuel Powertrain R&D Center, Intelligent Network System R&D Center, Commercial Vehicle R&D Center, Passenger Vehicle R&D Center, and International Hydrogen Energy Cooperation R&D Center.

SAIC Group has formulated a five-year plan for the development of fuel cell vehicles, and has begun to invest a lot of money in the development of fuel cell vehicles with Xinyuan Power as the fuel cell stack supplier. According to statistics from OFweek Industry Research Institute, from January 2017 to date, a total of 150 hydrogen fuel buses have been produced nationwide, of which BAIC Foton Motor Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Automobile Commercial Vehicle Co., Ltd. account for 84% of the market share.

On June 14, 2018, the People's Government of Guangdong Province issued the "Opinions on Accelerating the Innovation and Development of the New Energy Vehicle Industry", which pointed out that the full promotion of public transportation electrification (including hydrogen fuel cell vehicles) is another province and city that has issued relevant policies on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles after Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuhan and other places. At the same time, Datong, Qingdao, Yangzhou and other places are also brewing relevant plans to support the development of hydrogen fuel cells.

According to incomplete statistics, China's commercial orders for fuel cell vehicles reached a breakthrough of 1,000 vehicles in 2017. According to Tonghuashun Finance, almost all companies related to fuel cells, upstream hydrogen production and storage, and materials, such as Foton Motor, Furui Special Equipment, Huachang Chemical, and Tongji Technology, have successively announced that they will increase their investment in hydrogen fuel cells.

It seems that the market prospects are very good, and capital enthusiasm is high and investment is increasing, but China is still too late compared with its foreign counterparts.

Since 2001, my country has started to carry out research and development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The first proposal of the hydrogen energy industry development plan was in the "China Hydrogen Energy Industry Infrastructure Development Blue Book (2016)" released in October 2016. The development plan of fuel cell vehicles was clearly proposed in the "Made in China 2025" released later. GM in the United States began to develop hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in 1966, and Honda in Japan started in 1992.

Professor Zhang Cunman of Tongji University's New Energy Vehicle Engineering Center said, "China's hydrogen fuel cell vehicle technology lags behind developed countries by 5-10 years. China, which started late, faces a situation where foreign fuel cell vehicles have overcome technical difficulties and begun to overcome costs and service facilities, while China still faces technical problems. If the gap remains at around 5 years, there is still a chance to catch up, but if it exceeds 10 years, it will be very difficult to catch up."

Although academia and industry generally agree that hydrogen energy will greatly enrich the future energy system, and all countries and companies have great enthusiasm and hope for the fuel cell vehicle market, the continuous cleaning of traditional petrochemical energy and the discovery of more energy reserves will bring uncertainty to the large-scale use of hydrogen energy, and the huge costs and safety issues of core technologies, vehicles and hydrogen refueling stations are a very difficult gap to cross in front of the government and enterprises.

Professor Chen Quanshi, director of the Institute of Automotive Engineering of Tsinghua University and doctoral supervisor, said in an interview with the media that the government and car companies should work with universities and other research institutions to solve basic problems such as membranes, catalysts, and plates, rather than how many cars to make. In his opinion, fuel cell technology cannot replace pure electric technology.

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