Toray Industries, Inc. (headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President: Akihiro Nikkaku; hereinafter referred to as Toray) today announced that it has decided to newly construct a large-scale facility to manufacture carbon paper for electrode substrates of fuel cell stacks at its Ehime Plant (Masaki-cho, Iyo-gun, Ehime, Japan). Toray is currently working on application of carbon paper in fuel cell stacks with several customers and the development has been making good progress. The company will newly build a facility, with a production capacity about five times the existing facility, at its Shiga Plant to respond to the future increase in demand for the material. The company aims to complete the construction in May 2018 and introduce cutting-edge equipment that would enable efficient production of high value-added carbon paper.
Toray has been continuing with the development of carbon paper for electrode substrates of fuel cell stacks over the past 30 years and it has been adopted for the fuel cell vehicle MIRAI, introduced in December 2014 by Toyota Motor Corporation, and another fuel cell vehicle CLARITY FUEL CELL, launched in March 2016 by Honda Motor Co., Ltd., for the material’s superior gas diffusion property and durability. It is contributing to improving performance of fuel cell stacks and save space.
As an ultimate environmentally friendly vehicle that does not emit CO2 while driven, fuel cell vehicles play a significant role in the establishment of the hydrogen society and automobile manufacturers in Japan and elsewhere are earnestly developing next-generation models to be launched around 2020. Moreover, demand for carbon paper in other applications such as stationary fuel cells and forklifts is also expected to grow and the company has judged that it was necessary to increase its production capacity drastically. With the construction of new large-scale facility, it will also respond to the expansion of global demand for the material.
As the top carbon fiber manufacturer in the world, Toray has been continuously exploring the possibilities of carbon fiber composite materials and it is its intention to contribute to the realization of a low-carbon society by solving the environmental problems and the resource and energy issues.
