Coming as part of a £1.8m ($2.3m) investment, the company has received new etching and stripping machines, as well as an automatic exposure unit, allowing large metal sheets to be etched in production volumes.
Read more: Precision Micro supports growing hydrogen demand through facility scale up
Machined with complex flow fields and channels, bipolar plates in fuel cells distribute hydrogen and oxygen, conduct electricity and manage heat and water by-products. In electrolysers, they conduct electricity and manage the flow of water and gases.
Chemical etching is a way to cut and shape metal sheets into precise parts using chemicals. Rather than using physical tools, it uses digital designs to guide the process.
The delivery completes a second etching room at Precision Micro’s Fort Dunlop site in Birmingham, UK, as the firm looks to meet increasing demand for hydrogen production and storage technologies, as well as carbon capture, green buffering and electric vehicles.
Allowing metal sheets up to 1,500mm x 600mm x 2.5mm to be etched, the company said the installation increases throughput while also delivering cost savings to customers.
Karl Hollis, Director of Engineering at Precision Micro, said after discussions with various customers, it became “clear” there was a gap in the market for a supplier with the capacity to produce increased volumes of components for electrolysers, fuel cells, heat exchangers and more.
Etching a new future for electrolyser manufacturing
© Precision Micro
As the world continues to adapt to powering its vehicles, towns and cities with zero-carbon energy, the demand for new technologies is gathering pace. Here in this article, we look at how the current design and manufacturing process for bipolar plates, a component used in electrolysers that produce and store green hydrogen, could be made faster and more cost-effectively using chemical etching technology.
Electrolysers use electrical energy from wind, solar or hydroelectric sources to break water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis. The green hydrogen produced can be used to power anything from buses and cars, to generators, heating systems and machinery.
Many modern low-temperature electrolyser systems are built with modules (‘stacks’) based on proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis technology. And a crucial component of the PEM electrolyser is the bipolar plate, which has several important functions.
Bipolar plates have precisely manufactured, often complex channels that evenly distribute water in the electrolyser stack. Their core functions are for cooling the electrolyser, supplying reactant gases to the anodic sides, and evacuating the hydrogen and gases produced during the reaction…
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