PEM elec­trolyz­ers are equip­ment used to make hydro­gen. They work with elec­tric­i­ty and use irid­i­um as cat­a­lyst to split water mol­e­cules into hydro­gen and oxy­gen, and they will play an impor­tant role to reduce our car­bon foot­print, since the elec­trolyz­ers can make the pro­duc­tion of e.g., steel, fer­til­iz­ers, and fuels for heavy trans­port fos­sil free. 

The PEM elec­trolyz­er has sev­er­al advan­tages over oth­er elec­trolyz­er types. The rapid start and stop times make it oper­ate effi­cient­ly togeth­er with inter­mit­tent elec­tric­i­ty sources (such as wind- and solar-pow­er). This flex­i­bil­i­ty means that the PEM elec­trolyz­er can pro­duce cheap fos­sil-free hydro­gen on windy and sun­ny days, when the elec­tric­i­ty prices are low. 

The hydro­gen can then be stored and used when need­ed, for exam­ple in the indus­try, or be turned back into elec­tric­i­ty again. This flex­i­bil­i­ty and cost advan­tage make it attrac­tive to scale-up the pro­duc­tion of PEM elec­trolyz­ers, even though they today use large amounts of the scarce met­al irid­i­um as catalyst.

Because irid­i­um is such a lim­it­ed resource, reduc­ing its use in the elec­trolyz­ers is an absolute must, oth­er­wise the scale-up of PEM elec­trolyz­ers will be too expen­sive. Already today the irid­i­um price is around SEK 2 mil­lion and is expect­ed to reach around SEK 8 mil­lion by 2030.

This requires new mate­r­i­al engi­neer­ing solu­tions for elec­trolyz­er cells. Like the one Smoltek Hydro­gen is in the midst of devel­op­ing. It is a new cell mate­r­i­al that sub­stan­tial­ly will reduce the amount of irid­i­um in the elec­trolyz­er cell.

The devel­op­ment of Smoltek Hydrogen’s elec­trolyz­er cell mate­r­i­al (ECM) is advanc­ing accord­ing to plan, which is to low­er the amount of irid­i­um in the elec­trolyz­er cell towards 0.1 mg/​cm². As of now the com­pa­ny has pro­duced the same amount of hydro­gen as a stan­dard mate­r­i­al (that uses 2.5 mg iridium/​cm²) with only 0.5 mg iridium/​cm² and will most cer­tain­ly reach the goal of the year, which is to have an even low­er irid­i­um loading. 

First steps towards indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing of the cell mate­r­i­al
Besides the tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment, Smoltek Hydro­gen is work­ing in par­al­lel with devel­op­ment of an indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing con­cept for the cell mate­r­i­al. Today the sam­ples are pro­duced with lab­o­ra­to­ry tech­nolo­gies, in low quan­ti­ties and with typ­i­cal area of only a few square cen­time­ters, where­as the indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing con­cept must be scal­able to the high vol­umes fore­seen, which is tens of thou­sands of square meters a year, and beyond.

As a first step towards indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing, prac­ti­cal val­i­da­tion of the select­ed con­cept for the growth of nanos­truc­tures is need­ed, since it is a slight­ly dif­fer­ent type of Chem­i­cal Vapor Depo­si­tion (CVD) process than used today. In order to do this Smoltek Hydro­gen has placed an order with AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solu­tions for the design and engi­neer­ing of a new ded­i­cat­ed Pro­to­type Coater tool. Smoltek has explored sev­er­al dif­fer­ent con­cepts and the select­ed PECVD tech­nol­o­gy is expect­ed to work well for Smoltek’s growth process.

Smoltek and AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solu­tions will togeth­er design a Pro­to­type Coater tool that can mir­ror the out­put of full-size equip­ment. It will be placed in the Chalmers MC2 facil­i­ties in Gothen­burg, where Smoltek cur­rent­ly has its nanos­truc­ture fab­ri­ca­tion oper­a­tions. This is an impor­tant first step towards indus­tri­al­iza­tion of the Smoltek Hydro­gen cell material. 

The Pro­to­type Coater will be used to val­i­date that we have cho­sen the right con­cept for the future vol­ume man­u­fac­tur­ing, and also make it pos­si­ble to devel­op indus­tri­al growth recipes before fur­ther scale-up. And even more impor­tant – it pro­vides sam­ples of indus­tri­al tech­nol­o­gy already now, when cus­tomers are to use our new mate­r­i­al in the devel­op­ment of their next gen­er­a­tion of PEM electrolyzers. 

Shafiq Kabir, Head of Vol­ume Process­es at Smoltek Hydrogen

After suc­cess­ful val­i­da­tion of the Pro­to­type Coater, Smoltek Hydro­gen aims to order a Pilot Coater which is a small­er ver­sion of a final high-vol­ume tool. This is a cru­cial com­po­nent of AGC’s busi­ness mod­el, since they guar­an­tee the per­for­mance of the vol­ume machine if their small­er coater is used to spec­i­fy its require­ments. The Pilot Coater will be used to pro­duce test series for cus­tomers as well as for ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the pro­duc­tion tech­nolo­gies before vol­ume manufacturing. 

Smoltek Hydro­gen plans to scale up the man­u­fac­tur­ing in sync with cus­tomers’ prod­uct devel­op­ment process­es, to ensure cus­tomers can obtain appro­pri­ate sizes and quan­ti­ties of sam­ples as well as final prod­ucts when needed. 

About AGC
AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solu­tions is a new busi­ness unit with­in AGC Glass Europe SA, a Euro­pean leader in flat glass. AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solu­tions is pro­vid­ing low-pres­sure plas­ma coat­ing tech­nol­o­gy and equip­ment. AGC Plas­ma is an expan­sive team of plas­ma coat­ing experts spe­cial­ized in inno­v­a­tive PVD and PECVD appli­ca­tions from R&D and new prod­uct devel­op­ment all the way through to equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­ing and oper­a­tional man­age­ment of mass pro­duc­tion coat­ing plants. Vis­it the web­site www.agc-plasma.com to learn more about the equip­ment and ser­vices offered by AGC Plas­ma Tech­nol­o­gy Solutions.

Peo­ple pic­tured in the top pho­to, from left: Amin Saleeem, Bastien Pen­ninckx, Shafik Kabir, Erwan-Axel Mor­ris­son (AGC), Fabi­an Wenger, Jeroen Schot­saert (AGC), Elli­nor Ehrn­berg, Réka Simon-Balint.