One professional R&D hydrogen energy development fields in China announced recently that they have achieved a technological breakthrough in developing anion exchange membrane (AEM) independently, and have begun small-batch production by the end of 2023, and will reach the first-phase production capacity of 4GW in 2024.

The "anion exchange membrane", or AEM, is one of the four major technologies for producing hydrogen by water electrolysis. This AEM technology can not only be used in hydrogen production equipment, but also in anionic fuel cells and other fields. At the same time, the team also announced that the AEM electrolytic cell production line has achieved an annual production capacity of 1GW in 2023, and will be expanded to a large-scale production capacity of 4GW in 2024.

Alkaline hydro-electrolysis (ALK), proton exchange membrane (PEM) technology, anion exchange membrane (AEM) and solid oxide (SOEC) are known as the four major electrolytic water hydrogen production technologies. The latter both SOEC and AEM, as emerging technologies, have great potential, but AEM technology is still in the stage of basic material research and development in general.

Established in 2021, this R&D team mainly focuses on R&D of AEM membrane and manufacturing of high-end equipment and provides enterprises in the upstream of the hydrogen energy industry with comprehensive utilization solutions for hydrogen energy production and sales, as well as hydrogen energy fuel cells and hydrogen production engineering application and development services. The team announced recently "obtained a total of more than 20 invention patents and utility model patents."   

In February 2023, the team released China's first 2.5kW AEM cell unit. This is the first AEM electrolytic cell product domestically, and the comprehensive cost of AEM is "comparable to alkaline (ALK) electrolytic cell products." In terms of product power, the rated power of a single electrolyzer is 2.5kW, the DC power consumption is 4.3kWh/Nm³, the output pressure is 3MPa, and the maximum hydrogen production of a single electrolyzer is 600L/h. At the time of the launch, the company claimed that the product has a "fast hot and cold startup time," which "can reach 0-100% in 60 seconds for hot startup and no more than 5 minutes for cold startup."

According to information, the hot and cold start performance is also in the industry leading position in China. By the end of 2023, this professional team launched “10kW single cell products”,   and the world's first 100kW single-cell electrolyzer will be launched in early 2024 to accelerate the industrialization of AEM. It is also expected that "by 2025, the cost of AEM electrolyzer can be reduced to less than 2,500 RMB/kW."

Reported by Tony Gao    Email: Tony.gao@hyjadechain.com   MB: 0086-18201088833

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