On-tank valve for 700 bar hydrogen tanks

700 bar tanksystemen

For passenger cars, 700 bar would be a great solution to increase range. But 700 bar would also be a solution for trucks, because China is a huge country. Cities are as little as 16 hours' drive apart. It is quite normal for trucks to drive 24/7 with a change of drivers. To make that type of transport also possible with hydrogen, trucks also need hydrogen tanks of 700 bar.

Tong Joe from Shanghai University is a professor of alternative fuels. The contact goes back a long time: from the time when we developed systems together for refueling CNG and also for pre-filling hydrogen tanks with water.
He urged us to do something with this, which led to the contact with the German company Poppe + Potthoff. The goal was clear from the beginning - not just to develop a 700 bar system, but to define a new 700 bar standard.

Poppe + Potthoff proved to be an excellent partner to work with. In 2020 was the first meeting between directors and shareholders. There appeared to be a common conviction of the emerging market in China. Poppe + Potthoff has been active for years in high-pressure components in automotive applications. Teesing's experience is in assembly and subsystem production and distribution.

Every month, engineers from Poppe + Potthoff and Teesing sat around the table to design together and share data and needs. This led to several prototypes that were tested in-house. In early 2023 there was the design freeze and the certification process started. That would involve certification according to GBT (certification for China) and R143 for rest of the world. That certification process was implemented and completed with the TuV.

The technical infrastructure

The on-tank-valve (OTV) controls fueling, in combination with a solenoid valve, a temperature senor and a pressure sensor.
Without an integrated OTV, a system can also be built, but the additional piping to measure and control everything introduces many points at which the system can leak. This makes the system prone to failure, expensive and bulky in terms of space.

Following the OTV is a pressure stepper in the system: from 700 bar to 200 bar and from 200 bar to 5 bar. In the future this may be integrated with the on tank valve.

Target customers include tank manufacturers of Type 3 (regular tanks) and Type 4 (made from composite) hydrogen tanks.

In addition to the on-tank valve, we are also developing a TPID on the hydrogen tank. That is the safety regulator that blows off the tank through a glass plate that breaks at a certain combination of pressure and temperature.

Development of hydrogen fueling station network in China

Senstar is one of the companies in China that builds gas stations. For their selection of components, they also have the option of choosing Chinese suppliers for fillnozzles and subsystems, for example. However, those cannot meet the quality standard that Teesing works with and that was the reason for partnering to build 1,000 hydrogen fueling stations throughout China, mainly focused on long-distance connections between major cities.

The filling stations are operated by Sinopak, the Chinese oil and chemical giant, the third largest company in the world. Wherever you are in China: when you fill up with H2 or CNG, you always have a Teesing nozzle in your hand (just like in the Netherlands, by the way).

In China, Teesing supplies subsystems based on Poppe + Potthoff's hydrogen products and we are exclusive distributor.

Are you developing a hydrogen system and have subsystem challenges? We are happy to think along with your engineers. Please contact our sales engineers.