What are the potential applications of metal 3D printing in the future energy industry?

1. Nuclear Energy Field: "Core" Technology Breaks Through the Limits of Traditional Manufacturing
Components in nuclear power plants have to be very reliable. They have to be able to perform in very harsh situations, like high temperatures, high pressures, and powerful radiation. When making complex flow channel constructions, traditional methods have trouble with the procedure. However, metal 3D printing technology can do integrated molding by fusing layers together. For instance, the impeller of a nuclear reactor coolant pump made with electron beam melting (EBM) technology has an internal cooling channel that is only 2mm wide. It is hard to make structures with this level of precision using standard casting methods. More crucially, improving the topology structure makes the 3D printed impeller 30% lighter than standard designs and increases cooling efficiency by 15% at the same power.
Metal 3D printing is pushing the development of zirconium alloy cladding tubes in the nuclear fuel cycle. It takes several passes of cold rolling and annealing to make traditional zirconium alloy tubes. However, 3D printing technology can make thin-walled tubes with a wall thickness of 0.3mm immediately, with adjustable grain orientation and 40% better radiation swelling resistance. By 2030, a particular nuclear power company hopes to be able to use the world's first 3D printed zirconium alloy tube pilot production line for business.
2. The hydrogen industry is a key tool for solving the "impossible triangle."
The hydrogen energy business is up against the "impossible triangle" of safety, cost, and efficiency. Metal 3D printing technology offers a breakthrough answer by changing the materials and optimizing the structure. The bipolar plate is the most important part of proton exchange membrane electrolyzers that make hydrogen from water. Its flow channel design has a direct impact on how efficiently hydrogen is made. It's hard to get micrometer-level channel accuracy with traditional stamping methods. But 3D printed titanium alloy bipolar plates can reduce the channel width from 1mm to 0.2mm, which makes electrolysis 8% more efficient. A new energy company has cut the cost of making bipolar plates by 60% using 3D printing technology. A single tank can now make more than 1000Nm³/h of hydrogen.
3D printing technology is making high-pressure gas hydrogen storage tanks lighter, which is a big step forward in the hydrogen storage process. Using topology optimization design, the metal inner wall thickness of carbon fiber wrapped storage tanks may be cut from 8mm to 5mm. This keeps the tanks' pressure capacity at 70MPa and increases the hydrogen storage density per unit mass by 15%. It's even more impressive that 3D printing technology can make different materials change from one to another, such printing a tantalum coating on the top of a titanium alloy liner. This lowers the risk of hydrogen embrittlement by 90% and extends the life of storage tanks to 20 years.
3. Renewable Energy: Changing the Way Clean Energy Equipment Is Made
In the world of wind power, metal 3D printing is getting rid of the problem of having things that are both big and light. For example, standard forging methods need 120 tons of steel ingots to make the main shaft of a 15MW offshore wind turbine, yet they only use less than 40% of the material. But 3D printing technology uses a hollow gradient structure that can lower the weight of the main shaft from 45 tons to 28 tons and make it last 2.3 times longer than standard designs through biomimetic lattice arrangements. The world's biggest SLM metal 3D printing plant was developed by a wind power company. One machine can print circular parts that are 2.5 meters wide, and the factory can make enough parts for 500 wind turbines each year.
Breakthroughs in 3D printing technology also help the photovoltaic business. Metal 3D printing can make nanoscale electrode patterns in the production of perovskite cells. This reduces the thickness of the light-absorbing layer from 500nm to 200nm, which increases the cell conversion efficiency to over 33%. 3D printing technology can make curved cell structures that traditional photolithography methods can't, which opens up new ways to make integrated photovoltaics (BIPV). A group of researchers has devised customized tools for printing copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin films. This cuts the time it takesus to print a single cellComposite from 72 hours to materials to 8 hours.
4. Geothermal Development: How to Get Into Manufacturing Passwords in Tough Conditions
Drilling tools must be able to withstand very high temperatures and corrosion in order to generate geothermal electricity. At 350 °C, traditional nickel-based alloy drill bits are likely to crack due to stress corrosion in geothermal fluids. However, 3D printing technology can create a 0.5mm thick tungsten molybdenum alloy reinforcement layer on the surface of the drill bit through composition gradient design. This raises the working temperature to 500 °C and triples the service life. When a geothermal development company started using 3D printed drill bits, the cost of digging a single well went down from 12 million yuan to 7.5 million yuan, and the time it took to drill the well went down by 40%.
In enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), 3D printing is helping to build smart artificial thermal storage. Printing a guide plate with tiny channels lets you regulate exactly where the injected water flows in the formation. This makes it 25% more efficient at extracting heat. What's even more innovative is that 3D printing technology can make smart well completion tools with sensors that can keep track of temperature and pressure data in real time, helping to make decisions about how to manage geothermal resources.