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. The conference was guided by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration, co-sponsored by undp of the United Nations and the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, and fully supported by the Guangdong Provincial Development and Reform Commission, the Foshan Municipal People's Government, and the Foshan Nanhai District People's Government.
With the theme of "Co-creating the Hydrogen Era, Painting Carbon Neutrality together", many guests from global organizations, government departments, scientific research institutions, and key enterprises in the hydrogen energy and fuel cell industry gathered together to discuss the new opportunities for the development of China's hydrogen energy industry under the background of "double carbon".
In the special forum, the industry's top experts shared the research progress of cutting-edge technologies in the hydrogen energy industry. Sun Gongquan, chairman of Zhongke Jiahong (Foshan) New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., was invited to attend the conference and made a keynote report on "High Temperature Methanol Fuel Cell Technology" at the Xianhu Technology Forum.
(The following is the original version of the report)
Hello leaders, experts and colleagues! My name is Sun Gongquan, I am from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and I am also the chairman of Zhongke Jiahong Company.
The content of my report today is mainly in the following aspects: First, national strategic needs. Achieving carbon peaking and carbon neutrality is a solemn commitment made by our country to the world, and it is also a broad and profound economic and social change, and it is indispensable for energy power to come first.
From the perspective of energy security, the total oil import volume of our country last year was 456 million tons, and the dependence on foreign countries was as high as 70.24%, especially through the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca accounted for 70% of the total imports, so oil substitution and clean energy development are imminent.
There are many kinds of clean energy, wind power this year China has been connected to the grid installed capacity exceeded 300 million kilowatts, ranking first in the world for 12 consecutive years; solar installed capacity also exceeded 250 million kilowatts, an increase of 24%. At present, the power generation of hydrogen energy is far below this value, but hydrogen energy has special strategic significance, hydrogen can be burned, including aerospace engines, with liquid hydrogen liquid oxygen, Germany will input hydrogen into natural gas pipelines as fuel combustion; hydrogen can be prepared chemicals, hydrogenation reactions in chemical reactions are numerous; hydrogen can generate electricity, power generation is of great significance, in land, sea, air, many fields have broad application prospects.
In fact, the hydrogen energy economy was proposed by the United States in the 1970s, and the basic idea is that the reserves of water on the earth's surface are huge, and we often say "three mountains, six waters and one field". In 1985, the ITER plan was proposed internationally, and the idea was that if the hydrogen in the seawater could be extracted, the human energy problem would be solved. The idea was to use nuclear fusion. In 2003, China participated in the negotiation of the ITER plan, and officially joined in 2006, and the project has made great progress. Today, the connotation of hydrogen energy is richer, and the sources of hydrogen are wider, including the use of solar photolysis of water, electrolysis of water and so on.
Fuel cell was born in 1839, in terms of application, fuel cell output power from sub-wattage to tens of megawatts, land, sea, air, sky have broad application prospects. The reason why we consider methanol fuel cells is because in several mainstream power sources, such as supercapacitors, lead-acid batteries, nickel-metal hydride batteries, lithium-ion batteries, etc., the specific energy of methanol fuel cells is very high, which can exceed 1kWh/kg.
Fuel cell industry in recent years has developed rapidly, technical maturity has increased significantly, the commercialization process has accelerated, and today Mr. Tang and many people are talking about industrialization. In terms of the market, it is currently dominated by low-temperature hydrogen fuel cells, with a compound growth rate of more than 40%. Methanol fuel cells are up-and-coming, with a relatively low market share. In the past few years, the capital investment of fuel cells has exceeded 300 billion yuan, and thousands of newly born enterprises, especially in recent years, state-owned enterprises and central enterprises have entered in large quantities, which is undoubtedly a powerful promotion for the development of the entire industry. The national policy continues to be favorable, and there are currently three fuel cell vehicle demonstration application city clusters, of which Foshan is still the leading city of the Guangdong urban agglomeration.
In the field of electric vehicles, those present here may also have several five-year plans of participating countries. The recent development plan issued by the General Office of the State Council has given new connotations to the "three vertical and three horizontal", including pure electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles, and fuel cell vehicles. Three horizontal is the power battery and management system, drive motor and power electronics, and the newly added networking and intelligent technology.
The traditional battery structure is relatively simple, while the fuel cell chain is longer. As far as fuels are concerned, gaseous fuels include hydrogen, ammonia, natural gas, liquid fuels include methanol, ethanol, fuel oil, etc., and there are also solid fuels, such as light metal magnesium, aluminum, zinc, etc.
Fuel cell product development includes key materials, core components, system integration, etc. In terms of intelligent management, including battery electronic control, energy management, intelligent interconnection, etc. Finally, it can be truly applied to electric vehicles, ships, machine stations, etc.
Let's talk about the characteristics and economy of methanol fuel. When we talk about the hydrogen economy, everyone thinks about how to use hydrogen. Hydrogen is gaseous at room temperature, which has many advantages but also pain points. Methanol is liquid at room temperature, in addition to solving the pain points such as hydrogen storage, transportation, filling, etc., in fact, there are many advantages. As a hydrogen storage material, the best hydrocarbon is methane, but methane is gaseous at room temperature, and it is difficult to break the hydrocarbon bond. The hydrogen storage capacity of methanol as a liquid fuel is 12.5%. The hydrogen storage capacity of foreign hydrogen storage materials is about 1.4%, while the hydrogen storage capacity of domestic hydrogen storage materials is about 1.2%-1.3%. Methanol, liquefied natural gas, liquid ammonia, liquid hydrogen, etc. are all liquid fuels, and in terms of energy, the energy density of methanol per unit volume is obvious, even higher than liquid hydrogen.
Methanol emissions issues. The methanol reaction produces carbon dioxide. With the advancement of technology, carbon dioxide is captured and reacted with renewable methanol by hydrogenation. In recent years, China has also advocated liquid sunlight, using green hydrogen to produce carbon-neutral methanol fuel. Compared with gasoline and diesel, methanol can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 40%, and emissions of sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter are almost zero.
Methanol safety issues. As can be seen from this table, the safety of methanol is significantly better than that of several conventional fuels.
Toxicity problems with methanol. In water, the semi-lethal concentration of methanol is much better than other fuels, and its toxicity is much lower than that of gasoline, diesel and so on.
Why should we make methanol fuel cells, especially high-temperature methanol fuel cells? Let's take a look at it, the hydrogen energy economy has now been favored by the world, in fact, if the hydrogen is replaced by methanol, the difference is that the product has carbon dioxide, but with the development of carbon dioxide capture and utilization and other technologies, this is not a big problem.
In 2006, Nobel laureate George Andrew Olah of the University of Southern California pioneered the methanol economy, which is actually part of the hydrogen economy.
Low-temperature hydrogen fuel cells have obvious advantages, high energy conversion efficiency, environmental friendliness, and the pain point is that the preparation, storage, transportation, and filling of hydrogen are more complex, and the carbon monoxide content in fuel gas is more sensitive, usually less than 10ppm.
High-temperature methanol fuel cells use liquid fuel, which is more convenient to store, carry and refuel. After increasing the temperature, the carbon monoxide problem is almost negligible, and the electrode reaction rate is multiplied. However, the development of high-temperature resistant polymer electrolyte membrane materials has progressed slowly, and a lot of manpower and financial resources have been invested internationally, and breakthroughs have been made in recent years.
Methanol fuel cells work on the same principle as conventional primary/secondary batteries, with high energy conversion efficiency; they work in a similar way to gasoline/diesel generators, providing sustainable and stable power generation as long as fuel is continuously supplied. Methanol fuel cells are mainly divided into the following three types: first, direct methanol fuel cells, we have developed for nearly thirty years, which is characterized by direct injection of fuel into the stack, simple battery structure, easy to use and carry, high battery energy density, but low energy conversion efficiency; second, methanol through catalytic reforming, separation and purification into low-temperature PEMFC. Since the carbon monoxide content in the reforming gas is as high as tens of thousands of ppm, it usually requires multi-stage separation and purification, the system is complex, and the cost is high. The third is high-temperature methanol fuel cell, due to the birth of high-temperature electrolyte membrane, the battery's anti-carbon monoxide ability has been greatly improved, methanol fuel reforming gas is directly passed into the high-temperature stack, omitting the separation and purification steps, the electrode reaction rate has increased significantly, and in recent years it has become one of the international research and development hotspots. The high-temperature methanol fuel cell technology system is similar to that of low-temperature PEMFC, including key materials, core components, system integration, intelligent control, and multi-energy combination utilization.
We have carried out methanol fuel cell research and development for nearly 30 years, from electrocatalysts, electrolyte membranes, membrane electrodes, single bipolar plates to system integration, intelligent control, etc., and have completed the construction of electrolyte membranes, porous electrodes, membrane electrodes, and stack production lines. More than 230 patents have been authorized, and 9 awards at or above the provincial and ministerial levels have been awarded, including 3 national awards.
The main market applications are electric vehicle power supply, ship power / auxiliary power supply, small decentralized power station, etc., our strategy is to develop 1, 5, 10, 30kW modules, basically can cover 1-120kW practical applications.
In 2016, we assembled the first high-temperature methanol fuel cell-driven passenger car, the operating results showed that sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides have nearly zero emissions, the fuel consumption cost of 100 kilometers is less than 20 yuan, and 3 vehicles are in dalian for trial operation, which has been unanimously praised by expert peers. In addition, high-temperature methanol fuel cells have broad application prospects in scenic spots, RVs, engineering command vehicles, emergency power vehicles and other aspects.
In terms of ship power/auxiliary power supply. The promulgation and implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Sea has placed increasingly high demands on the marine environment. Most of the fuel oil used in international shipping is heavy oil, which is seriously polluted.
On November 8th, we developed a high-temperature methanol fuel cell cruise ship in Danzaoxian Lake, with a power supply of 25kW and an auxiliary power supply of 5kW to meet the needs of lighting, air conditioning, hot water and so on. Compared with conventional fuels, the advantages are obvious. Welcome to xianhu to experience it for yourself.
In terms of small decentralized power plants, the energy conversion efficiency of combined heat and power is high, and the application prospects are broad.
Summary: I personally believe that hydrogen energy may be the ultimate goal of energy, low-temperature PEMFC application prospects are broad; methanol fuel cells have obvious advantages, methanol fuel resources are abundant, low prices, and are indispensable across the oil and gas era; secondary batteries, low-temperature PEMFC, high-temperature methanol fuel cells have their own advantages and disadvantages, market segments may be different, but coexistence and complementarity are the trend of the times; fuel cell national policy orientation continues to be good, I hope that everyone will work together, work together, and create a better future, thank you.