HyVentus
To meet the huge global demand for green hydrogen, electrolysers that use renewable energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen are needed.
Due to the ongoing demand, there are currently announcements from electrolyzer OEMs that they are ramping up production capacities. However, even these efforts will not be enough to achieve the planned 10 GW of installed capacity in Germany (120 GW in Europe and 475 GW globally) by 2030.
For this reason, the Referenzfabrik.H2 has developed innovative technologies that will make it possible to substantially increase the output volume of electrolyser production which results in economies of scale significantly reducing production costs. The aim is to close the wide gap between supply and demand more effectively.
The HyVentus is a new type of electrolyser stack that has been specially designed for high-rate industrial large-scale manufacturing. The M300/10 variant is assembled from 10 cells, each consisting of two shaped and joined metal plates, the so-called bipolar plate (BPP). These two half plates are first rolled at high speed in a recently developed embossing rolling process and then welded together using an electron beam welding. Between each BPP is the proton exchange membrane (MEA), which is printed using an innovative inkjet process. Embedded in a stable foil frame, the subgasket with the associated seals and the porous PTL/GDL mats, the stack is formed. This is supplied with electricity via the two gold-plated contact plates at each end of the stack. Water and hydrogen are supplied and discharged through channels at the edge of each cell.
HyVentus is suitable for various application areas and has a high degree of efficiency. This makes it an excellent solution in terms of different target criteria such as availability, performance, size, efficiency, service life and costs.
At present, it is available to the partners of Referenzfabrik.H2 as a solution for developing the respective business model. In parallel, an industrial consortium is currently being established to design the stack technically starting in 2024 and produce it from 2025.
