TANAKA Expands FC Catalyst Production Capacity

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

TANAKA Holdings Co., Ltd. announced that TANAKA Kikinzoku Kogyo K.K., which operates the TANAKA Precious Metals manufacturing business, established a new Fuel Cell Catalyst Development Center in Kanagawa Prefecture to develop and manufacture electrode catalysts used in fuel cells. TANAKA Kikinzoku Kogyo already boasts a worldleading share of the fuel cell catalyst market, and with the expansion of the center, production capacity will increase seven-fold.

The new building is located adjacent to the existing FC Catalyst Development Center at TANAKA Kikinzoku Kogyo's Shonan Plant. This new building has approximately 3,000 square meters. This development and production site expansion has been combined with the construction of a new shipping and warehouse facility. TANAKA's added production capacity will increase by seven times the current production capacity. As a result, TANAKA will be able to provide stable supplies of products in response to demand for precious metal electrode catalysts which is rising in recent years to facilitate the development of a hydrogen-based society as well as expansion of fuel cell markets. The new buildings are scheduled for completion on July 18, 2018, and full-scale operations will commence in January 2019.

China has recently announced it support of developing hydrogen energy and fuel cell vehicles as strategic industries. With the announcement by the city of Shanghai of a subsidy policy plan for purchasing fuel cell vehicles and the establishment of R&D facilities. The global move away from diesel vehicles is accelerating in Europe, and there are developments in new transportation areas including fuel cell trains, marine, and unmanned vehicles that run on hydrogen. As a result, responses to the growing worldwide demand for fuel cell electrode catalysts are needed.

TANAKA will achieve stable supplies of fuel cell electrode catalysts while focusing on research and development. As a leading company for fuel precious metal catalysts over the past five decades, TANAKA will contribute to the widespread adoption of fuel cells and the development of a hydrogen-based society. 

About TANAKA's Fuel Cell Electrode Catalysts 

The FC Catalyst Development Center at the TANAKA Kikinzoku Kogyo Shonan Plant currently develops and manufactures electrode catalysts for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEFC). PEFC are used in fuel cell vehicles (FCV), ENE-FARM household fuel cells, and other applications, and their use is expected to expand in the future to commercial vehicles such as FC buses and industrial machinery including FC forklifts. PEFC are compact and lightweight and exhibit high output, and are a new, earth-friendly energy technology that employs a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. TANAKA is consolidating the precious metal catalyst technologies and electrochemical technologies that it has accumulated over many years to develop highly active platinum catalysts for PEFC cathodes (air electrodes) and platinum alloy catalysts with superior carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning tolerance characteristics for anodes (fuel electrodes).