Zhongke Jiahong New Energy Yang Linlin: Methanol fuel cells help green shipping

The 2021 UNDP Hydrogen Energy Industry Conference was held on December 8-10 at the Xiqiao Mountain Cultural Center in Nanhai District, Foshan City, Guangdong Province. "Hydrogen Listening Theatre", as a concurrent event of the 2021 UNDP Hydrogen Energy Industry Conference, invites industry technical experts to share cutting-edge technology concepts and practical dry goods in the hydrogen energy industry in the form of speeches and discourses. The speech covers fuel cell system technology and achievement application, fuel cell key component technology sharing, hydrogen energy and infrastructure construction. This time, the "Hydrogen Listening Theater" has a fuel cell technology theory, a hydrogen energy technology theory, and a hydrogen fuel cell technology theory. Yang Linlin, deputy general manager of Zhongke Jiahong (Foshan) New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., was invited to attend the forum and made a theme report on "Methanol Fuel Cell Helps Green Shipping".

(The following is the original version of the report)

Good morning, comrades. Let me introduce the application of methanol fuel cells in the marine field.

First of all, let's look at the application background, shipping is a barometer of the global economy, more than 80% of international goods are completed by water transport. China is also a big water transport country, and in recent years, ship shipping has shown a rapid development trend. However, the emission supervision in the marine field is far behind that of motor vehicles, And China did not begin to promulgate the first emission regulations until 2016, and the current standards implemented are equivalent to our original national standards for heavy trucks, and the car has reached the level of china five countries and six. Because it is relatively backward in supervision, the quality of oil used in the marine field is very poor. For example, a large ship emits as much pollutant as a million-dollar car; the entire marine industry accounts for 15% of the world's NOx emissions. At present, under the background of carbon neutrality and carbon peaking, the transformation of the marine field towards green is also unstoppable. The International Maritime Organization is planning to achieve carbon neutrality in 2100, that is, by the end of this century, and China is striving to reach carbon peak in 2030 and carbon neutrality in 2060, so under this general trend, the marine field will usher in a period of opportunity for transformation and upgrading.

The way to achieve green and low carbon in the marine field is mainly through two aspects, on the one hand, the fuel itself or the energy carrier itself is green, on the other hand, your energy conversion device should be efficient and low emissions. Now we list these energy carriers, including electricity, hydrogen, ammonia, methanol, diesel, and natural gas, can actually be produced by renewable energy. But which of these fuels is more suitable for the marine field, and what kind of energy conversion device to use, is a topic that needs to be discussed.

Let's analyze the two aspects of fuel and energy conversion devices, why methanol fuel cells are widely used in the marine field in the future.

First of all, the ship is not the same as the car, generally heavy load and long distance, so its energy demand is very huge. You may only need a few tens of kWh to a hundred kWh of electricity for a car, but ships are generally at least a few megawatt hours. So first of all, we can compare the energy density of these fuels to see their respective applications. At present, the energy density of diesel in liquid fuel is relatively high, methanol and liquefied natural gas are about half of diesel, liquid ammonia liquid hydrogen is about half of methanol, and the volume capacity density of the battery is lower. Taken together, methanol natural gas may be more suitable for long-distance transportation in the future, while liquid ammonia, hydrogen, and batteries are suitable for short-distance transportation.

In fact, energy density is only one aspect, if we comprehensively compare the overall volume weight, as well as your capital operating expenses and safety, endurance, infrastructure convenience, methanol is a better choice. So at present, there are more and more companies in the shipping industry that regard methanol as the green fuel for future ships, and shipping giant Maersk has ordered 12 methanol internal combustion engine ships to promote the company's carbon neutrality strategy.

People will say that methanol is not toxic? Because we have heard of the fake wine incident in Shanxi before, but in fact methanol is fuel, not beverage, methanol toxicity is far lower than gasoline, diesel, this point can be seen from the semi-lethal concentration and semi-maximum effect concentration in the figure. Then we look at its safety, methanol vaporization latent heat is relatively large, flammable and explosive is lower than gasoline. The U.S. environmental protection agency once made a prediction that if all the fuel of our cars now switched from gasoline to methanol, the fire accidents caused by fuel could be reduced by 90%.

Some people will also ask whether the methanol leakage will affect the waters? In fact, methanol is biodegradable, in an aerobic environment, whether in the soil or in open water, it will soon degrade, basically will not have a long-term impact on the environment. Foreign countries have also done some simulation analysis of methanol leakage, and the conclusion is that methanol leaks into open water, it does not require you to clear it, and the losses caused to fisheries and tourism are almost zero.

Earlier we talked about why methanol is an important direction for future ship green fuels from the perspective of fuel. Let's take a look at the energy conversion device and analyze why methanol fuel cells have great advantages. We just mentioned that these fuels can be produced by renewable energy, if you use internal combustion engines, you can use green fuels to achieve zero carbon emissions, but you can't avoid NOx emissions. Therefore, fuel cells are a development direction in the future.

The following introduction to the fuel cell, may be more clear to everyone, briefly speaking, fuel cell it is both a secondary battery and the advantages of the internal combustion engine, it works with the primary secondary battery is the same, the chemical energy directly converted into electrical energy, so efficient, low noise, low pollution. The use of the way is similar to the internal combustion engine, methanol can be added to generate electricity, easy to use.

Methanol fuel cell we from the technical route it is roughly divided into three categories, one is direct methanol fuel cell, methanol directly into the stack power generation, its cost is higher, lower than the power, suitable for the portable power supply under the kilowatt. The second is methanol reforming low-temperature PEM fuel cell, because the tolerance of low-temperature PEM to carbon monoxide is relatively low, the concentration of carbon monoxide needs to be reduced to less than 10 PPM, which leads to the need to add an additional separation and purification unit, which causes the overall system to be relatively large and the efficiency is relatively low. What we are currently doing is a high-temperature methanol fuel cell, which operates at 150 to 180 degrees Celsius, nearly 100 degrees higher than the low-temperature PEM. The increase in operating temperature brings many benefits, one is that the temperature increase brings an increase in the reaction rate, and the other is to improve the ability to resist toxicants, and the tolerance of carbon monoxide can be increased from the original 10 PPM to 30,000 PPM, so that there is no need to separate and purify, and the reformed gas directly enters the stack to generate electricity. As a result, the volume of the system is greatly reduced, and the application field is greatly expanded, which can be used in many fields such as power supply and combined heat and power.

Here introduce the advantages of methanol fuel cells, from the perspective of energy density to show you the visual diagram, in terms of fuel calorific value, a ton of diesel is equivalent to 2.2 tons of methanol, equivalent to 6.5 tons of high-pressure hydrogen (including storage tanks), if it is a lithium battery, it is about 45 tons. Liquid fuel storage and transportation is convenient, high energy density, obvious advantages.

Let's look at its emissions, methanol fuel batteries are no NOx, SOx and PM emissions, the whole life cycle carbon emissions can be reduced by 40%, which is said to use fossil methanol, if it is later we can use renewable methanol can achieve zero carbon emissions.

Let me look at the efficiency of fuel cells, which can be multiplied compared to internal combustion engines. The efficiency of the internal combustion engine is 30% to 40%, in fact it can only be achieved at rated power, if operating in a low load zone, its efficiency is much lower than 30%, probably only a dozen percent. Fuel cells, on the contrary, are relatively efficient in low load zones and are efficient at most loads. Due to the doubling of efficiency and the low cost of methanol fuel, the average price of methanol is about 2.5 yuan / kg. Therefore, the use of methanol fuel cells, its operating cost or fuel cost is only half of the diesel engine; take a 10,000-ton cargo ship as an example, if you switch to methanol fuel cells, the annual fuel cost savings are as much as one million.

The third part introduces the basis of our work, our technology is derived from the Sun Gongquan team of the Institute of Dahua of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the team has worked in the field of methanol batteries for more than 20 years, and has won 9 awards at or above the provincial and ministerial levels, including 3 national awards. Thanks to 20 years of experience, we have the ability to produce and develop the whole chain from key materials, core components, system integration to process control. In this key material, we have broken through the preparation of high-temperature electrolyte membranes, and we are the first in China to realize the batch preparation of high-temperature proton exchange membranes, breaking the monopoly of foreign countries. Based on this membrane, the high-temperature membrane electrode is also in the international leading level. Of course, a lot of work has also been done on unit components and core components such as bipolar plates, stacks, and fuel processors. In this way, a series of engineering prototypes from the 100-watt class to the tens of kilowatt-class were developed. Industry development, standards first, our team led the formulation of a number of methanol fuel cell standards, leading the development of the entire methanol fuel cell industry.

On November 8 this year, our first methanol fuel cell ship was launched in Xianhu Lake, which can be said to have opened a new direction for green shipping. This is the photo of our night voyage in Fairy Lake yesterday, and if you have the opportunity, you can go to Fairy Lake to see it. Our ship can net output 400 kWh of electricity by filling 200 kg of methanol; a single fuel addition can drive for 20 hours at a speed of 10 km / h, and the specific energy of the whole power system is greater than 600 Wh per kg. Of course, if the fuel carries more, this than energy can exceed 1000 Wh per kilogram.

Finally, let's look at the development plan, just now we mentioned that the technology originates from the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Zhongke Jiahong undertakes the high-temperature methanol fuel cell technology of the Institute of Chemicals for product development. The company's target market is divided into four major segments: decentralized power plants, combined heat and power generation, vehicle power supply, and marine power supply. Marine power is an important strategic direction for our company, and we hope to help achieve carbon neutrality in the marine sector, because methanol is not only a liquid hydrogen storage material, but also a carbon neutral fuel. Methanol and oxygen react to produce carbon dioxide and water, and carbon dioxide and hydrogen can synthesize methanol, which forms a closed loop, which is what we call the methanol economy or liquid sunlight program.

Our company in the field of ships is mainly two aspects, one is the power supply, this piece is currently due to the limitation of methanol fuel cell power level, mainly concentrated in the inland river, inland lake and offshore ships below the thousand tons level. The second is auxiliary power supply, which can supply power to 10,000-ton ships, or combined heat and power. The power supply part is planned to have 10, 30, 60 kW modules, and the auxiliary power supply has 5 and 20 kW modules.

Okay, thank you for listening, if you are interested, you can communicate after the meeting, thank you.