History of the CFY stack Technology

Plansee and Fraunhofer IKTS have been working together for several years and are constantly developing the CFY stack design (MK35x). This development dates back to bilateral activities with Siemens AG in the 1990s. The adoption of the stack technology by Fraunhofer IKTS in 1999 enabled a continuous further development of the platform. In 2005, Plansee established its new netshape technology for interconnect manufacturing, which resulted in a significant cost reduction for the bipolar plate in mass production. From 2007 to 2011, Fraunhofer IKTS and Plansee have taken decisive steps for the development of a modern CFY stack design.

Thanks to its excellent performance and its robustness, the MK351 stack is an impressive development. It was endurance-tested for 20,000 hours in a realistic system environment. Over the test period, performance degradation was very low at 0.7 % / 1,000 h. But development still continues. Small modifications to the interconnect allowed pressure loss on the air flux side to be reduced in the optimized MK352 stack design. This is an improvement that is particularly welcome to the system manufacturers. It reduces the power consumption of the air feed, which in turn increases the electrical efficiency of the system. The new MK352 stack design is also being endurance-tested. Currently, it has more than 11,000 operating hours on the clock. And again, performance degradation is at an extremely low level: The cycle stability was improved by factor 1,6, as was demonstrated in a test over 120 combined RedOx and start/stop cycles. A first, non-exclusive license for the MK352 stack technology has been granted to mPower GmbH in 2015.