CellForm Hydrogen

CellForm Hydrogen makes metal bipolar flow plates for electrolysers and fuel cells in Germany. These plates are the core part of a hydrogen stack. The company builds them for large-scale series production.

Bipolar plates do several jobs inside a stack. The pattern formed on each plate decides how well the chemical reaction runs. CellForm developed a new way to make these metal sheets, with a fine micro-structured flow field. The aim is better stack power and efficiency. Each customer can ask for an individual plate design that suits its own hydrogen application.

Customers choose the material. CellForm works with stainless steel, titanium and aluminium. The metal can be coated before or after forming. The company can work with a base sheet as thin as 0.05 mm, which gives very thin flow plates.

CellForm grew out of three companies. They brought together forming, welding and press automation know-how built over many decades. The company's experience with welding bipolar plates goes back to 1994, the start of the Mercedes-Benz NECAR series. It also builds on more than 50 years of practice in tool development and metal manufacturing. It uses a patented forming strategy to make welded plates that are accurate and finely detailed.

Demand for bipolar plates will be huge. One passenger vehicle needs 300 to 500 plates in its fuel cell stack. Electrolysers and fuel cells together will need not just millions but billions of plates. From the start of its research, CellForm set one rule, which was a minimal cycle time. Its process forms, welds and tests plates in a short time, and the setup is easy to scale up. Process automation experts work on making the technology cheaper to produce.

CellForm sees hydrogen as a key part of the global energy transition. Hydrogen turns renewable electricity into chemical energy that is easy to store and move. This helps close the gap between where energy is made and where it is used. The company says the growth of hydrogen depends on meeting the demand for plates in both volume and price.

Services

• Bipolar plate manufacturing
• Electrolyser flow plates
• Fuel cell flow plates
• Custom plate design
• Series production
• Welding of bipolar plates
• Forming of metal plates
• Plate testing