Hydrogen fuel cells: An overdue energy change

The electrolyte system focuses on shifting batteries from liquid to solid, a technology that balances battery energy density and safety, and is one of the most popular solutions for new car makers. In January this year, NIO released a concept car equipped with a "solid-state battery" with a driving range of nearly 1000km. Unfortunately, solid-state batteries are still a very immature technology, and the application scope is limited to concept cars.

The packaging scheme is the last link that can be optimized for lithium batteries, and there is only one battery enterprise to optimize the packaging scheme so far: install more batteries in a safer way.

Byd's blade battery solution is a typical representative, optimizing the battery pack design as much as possible through the blade type package to improve the energy density of the battery pack. But the amount of space that packaging technology can squeeze is very limited, and it needs to be combined with better battery management to make it work.

Third, "hydrogen" can be solved

The battery life bottleneck of lithium batteries has made the call for hydrogen fuel cells in the long-life market high, because the "power" and "energy density" problems faced by lithium batteries are not problems for hydrogen fuel cells. It combines the three characteristics of "extremely high energy density, infinite possible system capacity, and no charging."

The energy density of hydrogen is incomparable to traditional fuels: the caloric value of hydrogen is about 3 times that of petroleum and 4.5 times that of coal, and every 1kg of hydrogen is equivalent to 2.5kg of natural gas, 2.8kg of gasoline, and 33.70kWh of electricity (1kWh is commonly known as 1 KWH of electricity) [2].

At present, the energy density of lithium batteries can reach up to 300Wh/Kg, lithium iron phosphate is less than 200Wh/Kg, and the energy density of hydrogen fuel cell systems exceeds 350wh/kg, easily surpassing lithium batteries. At this stage, the hydrogen storage technology is not mature enough, the amount of hydrogen carried by the cylinder is not enough, and the energy is still significantly ahead of the lithium battery. With the optimization and upgrading of pressurization technology, the energy density of the latter is beyond the reach of lithium batteries.

Lithium is already the lightest metal element on Earth, but it's still too heavy for hydrogen, the first element on the periodic table. Although hydrogen can not be stored in liquid form, and the reactor and auxiliary system will have a certain weight, in any case, the energy contained in a unit volume of hydrogen fuel is far more than other batteries, that is, the energy density is high. Therefore, the current limit of lithium battery vehicles is difficult to break through 500km, while the range of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles can easily start from 500km.

In terms of system capacity, similar properties to engines allow hydrogen fuel cells to have unlimited capacity possibilities. In the process of hydrogen fuel cell power generation, hydrogen will continue to flow from the hydrogen tank into the battery system, and the regeneration of water is constantly discharged. In the case of the same size of the battery system, as long as the hydrogen storage container is large enough and the hydrogen can be loaded enough, the system capacity of hydrogen fuel cells can continue to expand.

In terms of charging, because hydrogen fuel cells do not need to store electricity in the battery, they do not need to be charged. Its charging principle is more like a traditional fuel vehicle, 3 minutes to 5 minutes full of hydrogen fuel, a single driving distance can reach 400 kilometers to 700 kilometers. In addition, another major advantage of hydrogen fuel cells is that there are no mechanical transmission parts, and no noise is generated during the entire power generation process.

Hydrogen fuel cells also have the right time and the right place: Hydrogen makes up 90 percent of the universe and can be regenerated indefinitely as long as the sun keeps rising.

China is the world's largest hydrogen production and consumption market, with industrial hydrogen production capacity reaching 25 million tons/year in 2019 [3]. The annual hydrogen released by the chlor-alkali industry in the form of sky lanterns alone is enough to drive 12.4 million vehicles; the annual use of hydropower to produce hydrogen in Sichuan Province can meet 2.75 million hydrogen fuel cell vehicles; in 2017, the abandoned electricity of wind power and photovoltaic can be used by more than 20 million hydrogen energy vehicles 。

China holds the key to the scale of the trillion hydrogen energy market, which is a fertile soil that has not yet been developed in the eyes of the giant, and for small and medium-sized enterprises, it is also a soil that can grow into a leading enterprise.

4. Still filling in

However, since Toyota launched the world's first commercial hydrogen fuel cell vehicle in 2014, when hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea went hand in hand in the commercial field, China's hydrogen fuel cell vehicle market has entered the exploration stage.