Metallic Bipolar Plate Fabrication Process of Fuel Cell by Rubber Pad Forming and its Performance Evaluation

Recently, the demand for energy is growing at a very high rate all over the world. The fossil fuels eventually lead to the foreseeable depletion of limited fossil energy resources. Hydrogen is considered a promising candidate to remedy the depletion of fossil fuels. The bipolar plate is the second most important component of a proton exchange membrance (PEM) fuel cell stack after the membrance electrode assembly (MEA). Its primary roles are to supply reactant gases to the fuel cell electrodes and provide electrical connection between adjacent cells in the stack while removing product water from the cell and transferring away the heat of reaction. Historically, machined graphite had been chosen as a good compromise between all of these requirements, but alternatives are emerging. New materials are light metals. In this study, rubber pad forming process was employed as the manufacturing method for metallic bipolar plates. The rubber pad and the sheet metal plate were pressed together by the punch, and the repulsive force of the deformed rubber is loaded at the plate, and can contribute to improving formability. And then, its surface was coated with TiN. After coating process, the performance characteristics of single stack in the condition of PEMFC using the metal bipolar plate have been investigated.

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Fabrication of aluminum 1050 micro-channel proton exchange membrane fuel cell bipolar plate using rubber-pad-forming process

The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology ◽

10.1007/s00170-012-4162-8 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 65 (1-4) ◽

pp. 231-238 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

Author(s):

S. S. Lim ◽

Y. T. Kim ◽

C. G. Kang

Keyword(s):

Fuel Cell ◽

Proton Exchange Membrane ◽

Bipolar Plate ◽

Proton Exchange ◽

Micro Channel ◽

Forming Process ◽

Rubber Pad Forming ◽

Exchange Membrane ◽

Aluminum 1050

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The Cylindrical Structure of Metallic Bipolar Plates for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell

Advanced Materials Research ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.228-229.1029 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 228-229 ◽

pp. 1029-1034

Author(s):

Jian Lan ◽

Chen Ni ◽

Lin Hua

Keyword(s):

Fuel Cell ◽

Proton Exchange Membrane ◽

Bipolar Plate ◽

Proton Exchange ◽

Battery Life ◽

Membrane Electrode ◽

Bipolar Plates ◽

Forming Process ◽

Cylindrical Structure ◽

Exchange Membrane

As a key component of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), the bipolar plate’s performance will directly affect the power output and battery life of the fuel cell. The conventional metallic bipolar plate is prone to warp, and has large flatness error with residual stress induced by forming process. This will result in contacting incompletely with membrane electrode assemblies (MEA) and lower fuel cell efficiency. A cylindrical structure of the PEMFC metallic polar plate is proposed to improve its stiffness and to reduce assembling error of the fuel cell. The polar plate features, which were originally designed on a flat surface, are projected onto the cylindrical surface with a certain curvature. Two cylindrical polar plates are welded together to become a bipolar plate. The finite element method is applied to compare the stiffness of the conventional and cylindrical polar & bipolar plates. The cylindrical bipolar plate has better stiffness and anti-warping than the conventional bipolar plate. The feasibility of the cylindrical structure is verified by experiment and provides a new idea for the improvement of the bipolar plate and fuel cell stack.

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Deformation Prediction of the Bipolar Plate Stamping

Advanced Materials Research ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.971-973.270 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 971-973 ◽

pp. 270-274

Author(s):

Hao Gao ◽

Jian Lan ◽

Lin Hua

Keyword(s):

Fuel Cell ◽

Proton Exchange Membrane ◽

Bipolar Plate ◽

Proton Exchange ◽

Channel Number ◽

Forming Process ◽

Dimensional Error ◽

The Right ◽

Exchange Membrane

Bipolar plate is the key component of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell and represents a significant part of the overall cost and the total weight in a fuel cell stack. Many research have been done on the manufacturing methods of bipolar plate, among which stamping is very popular. With the increasing of the channel number and complexity, its dimensional error caused by sprinkback will change a lot, even under the same forming process. And the risk of crack is also different. These all impact the quality of bipolar plate. In order to predict deformation of channels and the plate’s quality, the displacement along X-axis, the strain and stress state, and the displacement along Z-axis are measured. The results show that 1) the risk of crack increases with the increasing of channel number; 2) the springbacks increase with the increasing of channel number; 3) the most dangerous point locates on the right internal fillet of the plate’s last section.

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The Fabrication of a Micro-Channel for Metallic Bipolar Plates Using a Rubber Pad Forming Process

Key Engineering Materials ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/kem.626.16 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 626 ◽

pp. 16-26 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

You Min Huang ◽

Yi Syun Wu ◽

Shung Ping Wang

Keyword(s):

Thickness Distribution ◽

Flow Distribution ◽

Bipolar Plate ◽

Proton Exchange ◽

Channel Height ◽

Bipolar Plates ◽

Forming Process ◽

Element Analysis ◽

Metallic Bipolar Plates ◽

Rubber Pad Forming

A bipolar plate is one the most crucial and costliest of the various components of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). It is important to reduce the cost of bipolar plate, not only in terms of material, but also in terms of the manufacturing process, to allow the commercialization of PEMFC’s. The performance of PEMFC’s is also of importance. Metallic bipolar plates have been the subject of much attention recently, because of their low material cost, formability and excellent thermal and mechanical prosperities. Therefore, this study uses a rubber pad forming process for stainless 316L steel to fabricate a bipolar plate with serpentine channels. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis is performed, in order to determine the influence of channel geometries, such as channel width, channel height and rib width, on the flow distribution of the reactant. Using the CFD results, finite element analysis models are then constructed and the formability of the micro-flow channel is studied. Finality, experiments are conducted to determine the channel height and thickness distribution of the bipolar plate. The numerical results are verified by the experimental results.

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