CR2354 battery.Rookie in the energy industry---methanol fuel

As a carrier of (carbon, hydrogen) energy, methanol is essentially clean, and its basic physical properties of a liquid at normal temperature and pressure make storage, transportation, use and conversion of energy forms safer and more convenient. Due to its wide range of sources, huge economic volume, and sustainable development of the entire industry chain, methanol has gradually been recognized by the global industry as an ideal new clean and renewable fuel.

Methanol as a fuel began in the late World War II. At that time, countries such as Germany, Japan, and Italy were severely lacking in mineral resources. In order not to be controlled by others, methanol was used as a substitute for gasoline. It played a huge role at that time. The "super fuel" developed by Germany at that time was a finished fuel made of methanol, gasoline and additives. Because the technology at the time could not avoid the corrosion problem of methanol on metal and rubber parts, Germany used it as rocket fuel.

Methanol once again entered people's horizons as a fuel in the 1970s, as an alternative fuel in response to the impact of crude oil prices.

1. In 1997, Mercedes-Benz launched the first FCV using methanol as fuel, Necar3. It uses methanol steam reforming technology to reform methanol to obtain hydrogen and introduce the hydrogen into the stack to generate electricity. In this process, the hydrogen is produced and used immediately.

2. The Mercedes-Benz Necar5 launched in 2000. Based on the Necar3, this car has greatly improved its performance, especially in terms of "volume reduction".

3. Between 1996 and 2004, Honda also conducted corresponding research on hydrogen production from methanol reforming in the field of fuel cells, and launched related models.

Methanol is a chemical product in Europe, the United States and Japan. People have little connection with methanol in daily life, and their exposure to and understanding of methanol is far lower than that in China. In China, methanol, as a "fuel", has gone through many years of engine research and development and actual vehicle promotion and testing, and the methanol supply chain is complete.

Methanol energy promotes the development of automobile manufacturing industry

Methanol reforming to produce hydrogen has experienced a 10-year low period overseas (2006-2016), and has only been used in the field of backup power supply. In China, starting from 2010, some companies began to pay attention to this, conduct corresponding research, and gradually launch products starting from 2014.

In 2011, the Universiade was held in Shenzhen. That year, the municipal government decided to promote 2,011 new energy vehicles, 1,000 of which used lithium iron phosphate batteries. It was this batch of batteries that gave rise to the application of methanol fuel cells in automobiles: Because the mileage of that batch of lithium battery electric vehicles declined too quickly, and there was an urgent need for a solution, some people began to consider using fuel cells to charge lithium batteries in vehicles—— Extended range.

In 2015, Mirai was born, with a price of US$70,000 and a 113kW stack. It suddenly opened the minds of Chinese hydrogen fuel cell workers: fuel cells can be made very cheap. In terms of performance, it is not necessary to reach more than 100kW in one go. You can start from 30kW.

Under the guidance of this technical route, the methanol reforming fuel cell power generation system began to enter the vision of my country's automobile manufacturing industry, officially entered the development stage of China's automobile industry, and began to be in-depth research in China.

As a "generator" system, the methanol reforming hydrogen production + hydrogen fuel cell system has three main technical routes:

A. The first type of technology is methanol reforming + high-temperature fuel cells (methanol reforming to produce hydrogen and high-temperature fuel cells). This type of technology is a relatively fast-developing technology path at this stage. Representative companies include Danish Senergy and Bohydro Palcan, which are already in Electric vehicles and other special fields are used.

High-temperature fuel cells refer to proton exchange membrane technology with operating temperatures above 160°C. Compared with the normal temperature/low temperature system with an operating temperature of about 85°C, the 160°C operating temperature of the high-temperature fuel cell can ensure that the product of the hydrogen reaction in the stack is water vapor, and there is no possibility of liquid water. At present, high-temperature fuel cells and low-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells are currently the most mature fuel cell technologies. However, the biggest shortcomings of high-temperature fuel cells are low efficiency, large size, and technical problems with catalysts and membranes that have not been effectively solved. At the same time, it also faces on the issue of industrialization.

B. The second type of technology is methanol reforming hydrogen production + hydrogen purification + low-temperature fuel cell (water hydrogen technology). This path is the integration of methanol reforming hydrogen production technology and low-temperature pure hydrogen fuel cell technology. The rich hydrogen obtained by reforming methanol and water is purified to obtain high-purity hydrogen with a purity of 99.9999%. The hydrogen then enters the fuel cell stack to generate electricity. Representative companies include water and hydrogen enterprises such as Shanghai Hevede, Guangdong Hevede, Guangdong Nengtang, Shandong Wei Hydrogen and so on. At present, water hydrogen technology has been successfully used in electric vehicles and communication base station power supplies, and has been widely recognized.

Low-temperature pure hydrogen fuel cells are currently the most mature and efficient fuel cell technology. They have already achieved mass production and are widely used in many application fields. Currently, fuel cell vehicles that have been commercialized use low-temperature fuel cell systems, such as Toyota Mirai and Honda Clarity.

C． The third type of technology is methanol reforming + CO removal device + low-temperature fuel cell.

The characteristic of this technology is that the CO in the mixed gas produced by methanol reforming is selectively oxidized through a catalyst, turning it into CO2, and then entering the anode of the low-temperature reactor in the form of a mixed gas, and hydrogen participates in the reaction to generate electricity. Other gases are exhausted from the anode. At present, research is mainly led by some European research institutes.

In addition to the above three methanol reforming hydrogen production fuel cell systems, there is also a direct methanol fuel cell DMFC (DirectMethanolFuelCell). The structure of the electric stack is also that of PEM, with the bipolar plate and proton membrane as the main part. However, compared with other fuel cells, despite the obvious advantages of DMFC, its development is slower than other fuel cells.

The most competitive methanol hydrogen production + fuel cell technology equipment---water hydrogen machine

The water hydrogen machine is a device that is highly integrated with methanol steam reforming hydrogen production technology and fuel cell power generation technology. It includes three major systems: hydrogen production, power generation and intelligent control. Its working principle is that the methanol-water mixture is converted into hydrogen-rich reformed gas in the reformer. The rich hydrogen passes through the purification membrane to form ultra-pure hydrogen. The pure hydrogen enters the low-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack and undergoes the hydrogen-oxygen reaction. Generate electricity. The intelligent control system realizes the interactive coordination between the hydrogen production system and the power generation system and the immediate production and use of hydrogen.

At present, the purity of hydrogen produced by water hydrogen machines is as high as 6.9. High-purity hydrogen can improve the system life and efficiency of fuel cells. It uses exhaust gas recycling technology, and the only carbon dioxide emitted can be recovered, so it has zero emissions. In addition, oxygen is not required in the hydrogenation process of water-hydrogen machine, because the raw material methanol of water-hydrogen machine contains oxygen, and high-purity hydrogen can be produced without air movement by directly using oxidation and catalysis. Key technologies such as high hydrogen purification and exhaust gas recycling give water hydrogen machines the advantages of "dynamic hydrogen", "high-purity dynamic hydrogen", and "emission-free high-purity dynamic hydrogen".

The advantages of the water hydrogen machine in hydrogen production are highly integrated with the current most efficient hydrogen fuel cells, which can achieve the longest life, most efficient and cleanest hydrogen fuel cells.

On the technical front, the water hydrogen machine can completely avoid the storage, transportation and hydrogenation processes in the traditional hydrogen use process, solve the safety issues, cost issues and infrastructure construction issues of hydrogen energy application, and fundamentally solve the hydrogen problem of fuel cells. source, providing a way out for the large-scale market and commercialization of hydrogen energy and fuel cells.

In order to break through the economic and safety problems existing in the promotion and application of hydrogen fuel cells, and is committed to quickly realizing the marketization and industrialization of water hydrogen machines, the group launched the industrialization of AH7500 water hydrogen machines in 2018, and took the lead in cooperating with Shandong Weijiao Holding Group formed a partnership and officially launched the industrialization project of 100,000 AH7500 water hydrogen machines, aiming to comprehensively improve the R&D, production and testing capabilities of 7.5kW water hydrogen machines.