New Toray Alternative

I got a phone call recently from Ballard Material Products Division about their new "drop-in" alternative to Toray's widely-used carbon fiber paper. The new gas diffusion layer (GDL) material comes in two different thicknesses: AvCarb® MGL190 (or MGL 190, 0.19 mm thick) and MGL370 (or MGL 370, 0.37 mm thick). It is claimed to be a drop-in replacement to Toray's GDL, except at a lower cost. An additional benefit is being U.S.-made, rather than an import, which helps provide domestic content on U.S. Government projects. (Full Disclosure: Ballard has teamed with my employer Giner Electrochemical Systems, LLC. on a U.S. DOE-funded research program to develop modeling of transport phenomena in H₂/Air PEM fuel cells.)

Ballard Material Products Division was previously owned by Textron. The Ottawa Business Journal reported in 2001 that Ballard buys Textron unit for $12.8M US. Ballard announced that the deal included 66 patents issued and pending worldwide, covering 14 innovations. Since that time Ballard has not moved the Material Products Division to British Columbia, but allowed it to remain in Lowell, MA.

A Ballard/Toray comparison (left) shows the AvCarb^® material at the same thickness, bulk density, and porosity as the Toray material. In addition, the AvCarb^® has improved electrical resistivity, incresead flexural strength, tensile strength, and flexural modulus. A sample of both the MGL190 and MGL370 are in-transit to Giner, and will be tested in the coming weeks. We will likely test it for fuel cell, electrolyzer, and possibly other electrochemical applications.

I have not been able to find any information on AvCarb^® MGL190 or MGL370 on the Web, so I guess you saw it here first!

Comments

[Keith D. Patch]

Janice--

Thank you for the link to Ballard's GDL. Sorry I neglected to put it in the post.

--Keith

[Janice Mariano]

Chanho, Gabriel and all of Fuel Cell Nation: My name is Janice Mariano and I work for Ballard Material Products. I will be happy to send samples to those folks interested in qualifying our new GDL. Please contact me at [email protected]

[Keith D. Patch]

Chanho--

I do not work for Ballard. You will have to contact them directly.

Note: I wish they had put a URL or phone number on their comparison data sheet that I could have linked to!

[Account Deleted]

It is good news for Fuel Cell society. We would like to test the new product as soon as possible.

[Keith D. Patch]

Gabriel--

Yes, we have to wait to see what this product's commercial impact is on electrochemical technologies. But lower cost and better performance is definitely the way to go!

[Gabriel D Marin]

Great news and thanks for sharing at this early stage. Also, the contract with DOE to model transport phenomenon is a perfect match to this new development. We have to wait for further developments to see the impact on overall performance and cost, so critical variables to the deployment of fuel cells in the transportation industry.