Roll-to-Roll
Assembly Line
NREL To Lead New Lab Consortium To Enable High-Volume Manufacturing of Electrolyzers and Fuel Cells
The Roll-to-Roll (R2R) Consortium is a new national laboratory consortium with a mission to advance efficient, high-throughput, and high-quality manufacturing methods and processes to accelerate domestic manufacturing and reduce the cost of durable, high-performance proton exchange membrane fuel cell and electrolyzer systems.
The R2R Consortium is led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and includes Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories.
High-throughput manufacturing of fuel cells and water electrolyzers is critical for achieving widespread deployment of low-cost, clean hydrogen technologies. Roll-to-roll manufacturing of materials can increase efficiency, reduce material waste, and improve cost, but there are challenges related to materials synthesis, coating, drying, and quality control that need to be addressed to scale up these processes for industry adoption.