The primary objective and goal of the project is to develop a process and equipment to rotary emboss flexible graphite, produced from natural graphite flake, in a high-volume production process with…

The primary objective and goal of the project is to develop a process and equipment to rotary emboss flexible graphite, produced from natural graphite flake, in a high-volume production process with capacity to produce 2,400 plates per hour on a single production line. Ultimately, upon successful completion of the project, saueressig's production line process and equipment would be used to produce prototype customer BPP plates. Upon qualification, saueressig will sell fully scaled production lines based on the technology and process developed within this project. Additional DIE production and refurbishing would continue to be a customer provided service by saueressig, along with the equipment service, maintenance, and support. Objectives of the project include developing a process to manufacture bpps that would meet the department of energy ("DOE") performance targets including a durability of 25,000 hours and achieving a per plate cost target of $5KW/net. The project would approach this goal from further development of a proof of concept / demonstration production line developed for flexible graphite bipolar plate production. Key innovations would include: (1) modifications to material handling; (2) greater automation of the production process requiring significant technical improvement; (3) elimination of manual input and minimizing of batch production; and (4) implementation of roller embossing of the flexible graphite plates.