LHI Supports SHPT in Building China’s First Roll-to-Roll Automated MEA Production Line

For years, the industry has relied heavily on imported MEA, leading to higher production costs and slowing the broader application of fuel-cell systems. SHPT set out to build its own MEA manufacturing line to secure full control over R and D and production, ensuring independent mastery of core fuel-cell technology. As the most critical component in a fuel-cell stack, MEA performance directly determines final system output, and SHPT therefore established stringent precision requirements for the equipment.

The ultra-thin nature of MEA materials demands specialized processing technologies to ensure film integrity and functional reliability. High-speed continuous handling of ultra-thin, flexible polymer foil with through-features is widely recognized as one of the most demanding processes in manufacturing. Achieving roll-to-roll packaging on top of this—turning the processed materials into commercially viable MEA products—adds another layer of complexity.

Although MEA production lines with varying technical routes already existed, SHPT  set higher goals. The new line needed to seamlessly integrate with its preceding roll-to-roll direct-coating process, deliver high-precision packaging, maintain high capacity and yield, and retain sufficient flexibility for technology upgrades, enabling cost reduction and long-term competitiveness.

Because SHPT’s upstream process was the first of its kind in China—with material electrochemical and physical properties not yet fully defined—LHI had no domestic reference cases. The company was tasked with enabling high-speed, continuous roll-to-roll MEA production while achieving breakthroughs in both efficiency and cost. To address this challenge, LHI assembled a joint development team with experts in materials science, mechanical engineering, and electrochemistry. Together with SHPT, the team analyzed the technical characteristics of the process and planned the production line architecture in detail.

After 11 months of development, the team successfully overcame the core difficulty: high-speed continuous handling of ultra-thin flexible polymer foils. The result was a high-precision roll-to-roll packaging module capable of stable industrial-scale production.

At the feeding stage, LHI’s asynchronous CCM three-axis alignment system enabled five-in-one roll-to-sheet lamination. By integrating laser die-cutting with alignment-hole cutting, the system achieved cutting accuracy of ±0.1 mm, burr size below 50 μm, and frame-alignment precision of ±0.15 mm.In the packaging process, a steel-belt thermal-lamination system enabled seven-in-one roll-to-sheet continuous packaging with a single-station cycle time of 7.5 seconds—significantly increasing process compatibility and overall throughput.

From slurry preparation to coating and final seven-layer lamination,  SHPT’s MEA production line has become one of the world’s most advanced “intermittent + roll-to-roll” direct-coating automated lines. Once fully ramped up, the line is capable of producing 2.4 million MEAs annually, achieving “ultra-high capacity” and “fully automated” manufacturing across the entire process. The project also enables  SHPT to fully integrate MEA R&D with industrial-scale production.

On May 28, 2021, China’s first high-speed roll-to-roll automated MEA production line was officially delivered and commissioned at SHPT. After more than a year of operation, the line has demonstrated stable performance, high productivity, and product uniformity and consistency exceeding expectations. Its success marks a major step forward in bringing China’s fuel-cell core components—represented by MEAs—into the era of intelligent manufacturing.