A review of proton exchange membrane fuel cell's bipolar plate design and fabrication process

Abstract

In order to realize the fuel cell (FC) operation with higher power density, researchers have made various attempts to it. The innovative design of bipolar plate (BPP) can contribute about 20% to the volumetric power density increase. Mass transfer and drainage capacity are two keys of plate design. In order to improve its mass transfer capacity, many improvements have been made, such as baffle flow field (FF) and biomimetic FF. These FFs have their own advantages and disadvantages. For facilitate comparison, this article summarizes the influence of various FF designs, structures, flow patterns and other parameters on FC performance, and gives the BPP's development direction in the future. The effects of different FF structures, geometric parameters and arrangement forms on the uniformity of i distribution are summarized. The effects of contact area, channel design parameters such as channel width/rib ratio, fillet radius and channel size on the BPP's interfacial contact resistance are reviewed. Guidance is provided for designing FFs that can achieve more uniform i distribution and smaller contact resistance. The main manufacturing processes of BPPs are reviewed, and then the difficulties that need to be overcome in order to manufacture higher performance BPPs are pointed out.