Dec 23 2010
Ballard Power Systems has declared that the company has manufactured its one-millionth MEA (membrane electrode assembly), which is the key component of Ballard Hydrogen fuel cells.
These fuel cells are used to fulfill the customer needs of clean energy and high efficiency solutions as backup power, in transit bus applications, distributed generation and material handling. According to Paul Cass, Vice President of Operations at Ballard, not only has the company been producing fuel cells in volumes but it has also been decreasing the costs associated with production by using significant innovative automation manufacturing techniques, such as ionomer spray coating, MEA lamination and LIM sealing.
Ballard crafts and produces proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, which are a combination of oxygen and hydrogen for generating emission-free and clean electricity. The MEA is a core part of each fuel cell where each cell contains one MEA, which is capable of producing light to power a light bulb. By piling multiple cells the overall output could be increased to multi-megawatt level where each megawatt would be able to power around 800 homes.
Enhanced manufacturing capability is the result of the introduction of automated or constant manufacturing to replace the older labor-intensive, discrete processes. The MEA Lamination where the MEA parts are cut and brought together is now achieved by using new equipment, which has been designed with Ballard’s needs in mind. The automation technique increases the production by ten times using the same labor. An added bonus is that the space needed for this process is also less than 10% from what was needed for the discrete method. The free space could now be utilized for future growth.
The knowledge gained by using this MEA laminator would be employed on developing a newer improved version of the MEA laminator, which would provide a four-fold productivity increase. All this has contributed to the reduction of fuel cell product costs during the past two years. Future innovations may lead to further reduction in cost and help position Ballard to be a more aggressive competitor in the market and achieve higher gross margins on sales of the products.
Source: http://www.ballard.com