Compared with lithium batteries in full swing, hydrogen fuel cells are still in the early stage of development and have a small market share. By 20021year, the number of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in China is 8922, accounting for 18% of the major countries in the world. According to the hydrogen energy-related plan issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, by 2025, the number of fuel cell vehicles in China will be about 50,000.
Hydrogen morning technology has completed three rounds of financing, and the latest round is 202 1 and 1 two rounds of A+ financing with more than 250 million yuan. Investors include Shenneng Group, Lingang Group, Lingang Management Committee, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Jingneng Group, IDG Capital and Free Trade Zone Fund.
In the fuel cell industry chain, the fuel cell stack is in the middle core, which can be called the heart of the fuel cell engine system. The fuel cell stack produced by hydrogen morning technology has the characteristics of high power, high power density and high reliability.
The core team of Hydrogen Morning Technology has many years of development, design and trial-production capabilities of fuel cell stacks and core components. The company's technology originated from the School of Mechanical and Power Engineering of Shanghai Jiaotong University, and it is a typical representative of the transformation of scientific and technological achievements between Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lingang Group.
Yi Peiyun, general manager, is a professor and doctoral supervisor at School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, and a young Changjiang scholar of the Ministry of Education. He has been engaged in the research and development of hydrogen fuel cells since 2005. The team has successively completed major international cooperation projects of the National Natural Science Foundation, national 863 plan projects and national key R&D projects, and applied for more than 200 intellectual property rights. At present, * * * Company has more than 300 employees, including 2 doctors1person and returnees1/person.
This is a startup company hatched from the laboratory of Shanghai Jiaotong University. In 20 17, the founding team formally established hydrogen morning technology and began independent commercial operation.
At present, Hydrogen Morning Technology has developed four kinds of fuel cell stack products: 80kW, 100kW, 120kW and 150kW. The volume power density of the latest generation of 230kW products reaches 6.2kW/L, and the rated power conversion rate is more than 50%. Its products adopt the flexible intelligent manufacturing production line independently developed by Hydrogen Morning Technology, and cooperate with high-precision visual inspection system, which has the characteristics of high precision, high pressure resistance and high reliability.
Dr. Bai Yunfei, Chief Operating Officer of Hydrogen Morning Technology, told 36Kr: "Hydrogen Morning Technology's products cover many different models, and the largest shipments are 120 kW and 150kW high-power reactors."
In addition, Dr. Bai Yunfei revealed that Hydrogen Morning Technology will accelerate the research and development process of high-power reactors in 2022, and complete the breakthrough from 230kW to 300kW per reactor.
Hydrogen morning technology has been widely used in commercial vehicles, buses, heavy trucks and other application scenarios. At the same time, Hydrogen Morning Technology also explored application scenarios such as drones, ships and aircraft backup power supplies.
While providing customers with fuel cell stack products, Hydrogen Morning Technology will also provide overall solutions or membrane electrodes and other components according to users' needs. In addition to reactor products, the company has also developed fixed power stations and electrolytic water business.
Hydrogen fuel cell stack is an electrochemical power generation device, which converts hydrogen into electricity (and heat) through the reaction between catalyst and oxygen, and its only product is water; Moreover, the calorific value of hydrogen is extremely high, reaching 143 MJ/kg, and the heat energy generated by 1kg hydrogen combustion is equivalent to 3kg gasoline, which can also reach about 120 times that of ternary lithium batteries. From the point of view of environmental protection and energy density, it is an excellent green energy.
Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell is the technology used in hydrogen morning technology reactor, and some enterprises at home and abroad have tried solid fuel cell route and methanol fuel cell route. Dr Bai Yunfei told 36Kr that PEM is the most mature route for commercialization at present.
Dr. Bai Yunfei: "The threshold of research and development of fuel cell itself is high, and it is difficult for multi-disciplinary coupling. First of all, the stack, assembly and production process are all mechanically demanding designs. At present, the products are mainly used in vehicles, which require the mechanical durability and environmental durability of fuel cells to be earthquake-resistant, waterproof and dustproof. Then, the manufacturing precision of bipolar plate, membrane electrode and other parts is extremely high, and the deviation of the depth of polar plate channel is less than 65438 00 microns, and the maximum deviation of single cell assembly after stack assembly is less than 0.2mm；; Then, in terms of performance consistency, the flow channel of hydrogen and air involves fluid mechanics, and it is necessary to achieve a flow deviation of less than 5% in hundreds of cells; Hydrogen decomposes at the anode side and then reaches the cathode side through the proton exchange membrane to combine with oxygen to generate water, which involves electrochemistry and needs to achieve high performance, long durability and low cost. When the fuel cell generates electric energy, part of the energy will be converted into heat energy, which also involves the heat dissipation of engineering thermodynamics. Problems in any of the above aspects will affect the output performance, safety and reliability of hydrogen fuel cells. "
Hydrogen fuel cell stack, graphite electrode plate and metal electrode plate have different technical routes. For the scene of on-board fuel cell, higher product volume is required, and the metal plate is thinner than the graphite plate, so the metal plate stack can achieve greater volume power density and has greater advantages. Dr. Bai Yunfei said that Hydrogen Morning Technology has been studying metal plate materials since 2005, and it is the earliest team to study metal plate battery stacks in China.
Hydrogen morning technology's fuel cell stack adopts forward research and development design, completely independently designs and produces, and masters the core proprietary technology of membrane electrodes, catalysts, plates and other components, which can control the performance, accuracy and reliability of the stack products to the greatest extent. From the safety point of view, Hydrogen Morning Technology has core patents and technologies in insulation design, overall stack design, stack reaction rate and other dimensions to ensure the safety of hydrogen fuel cells.
Compared with lithium batteries, there are still many problems to be solved in the hydrogen fuel cell industry: imperfect infrastructure; High product price; The life of the battery pack needs to be improved; Fuel cell technology also needs iteration to develop into higher power products.
Dr. Bai Yunfei told 36Kr that the current unit price of hydrogen fuel cell system in the market is about 5,000 yuan per kilowatt, which is lower than the previous unit price of 0/0000 yuan per kilowatt/kloc, but it is still at a high level. We hope to reduce 10% or more every year in the future, and it is expected to reach the level of 1000 yuan per kilowatt in 2025.
In order to achieve the industrial phased strategic goal of "making fuel cell stacks equal to traditional engines in volume, life and price", Hydrogen Morning Technology will continue to increase technical investment and research and development in the future, and develop stack products with better performance and higher volume power density; At the same time, through industrial extension, domestic substitution, large-scale production and other means to reduce costs
In May 2022, Hydrogen Morning Technology announced that it would acquire 0/00% equity of Dong Qing Technology/KLOC-by way of share exchange. Dong Qing Science and Technology Co., Ltd. is one of the few manufacturers of fuel cell core key materials that independently research and develop, produce catalysts and load them on membrane electrodes in batches.
Dr. Bai Yunfei said that the products of Dong Qing Science and Technology have changed the original blank of domestic production of high-performance membrane electrodes, and the domestic automobile membrane electrodes are mainly imported. In the future, Hydrogen Morning Technology and Dong Qing Technology will jointly establish an integrated collaborative development system from catalyst, membrane electrode to stack, improve the research and development efficiency of stack, and reduce the cost of stack technology and design to the material level.
When asked when the peak of hydrogen energy industry will come, Dr. Bai Yunfei said that when the annual output of hydrogen energy vehicles reaches 50,000-65,438+10,000, the hydrogen energy industry will usher in a new peak stage of development.