• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.99-102
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• 2006

Optimal flow-field design of bipolar-plates for a commercial class PEM(polymer electrolyte membrane) fuel cell stack was carried out on the basis of three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics(CFD) simulation. A three-dimensional CFD model originally developed by Shimpalee et al., has been utilized for performing large-scale simulation of a single fuel cell consisting of bipolar-plates gas diffusion layers, and a membrane-electrode-assembly(MEA). The CFD model is able to predict the current density, pressure drops, gas velocities, vapor and liquid water contents, temperature distributions, etc. inside a single fuel cell. Depending on simulation results from the CFD modeling of a PEM fuel cell, several flow-fields of bipolar-plates were designed and verified. The final design of the bipolar-plate has been chosen from the simulations and experimental tests and showed the best performance as expected from the simulation results under a normal operating condition. Thus, the CFD simulation approach to design the optimal flow-field of the bipolar-plates was successful. The final design was adopted as the best flow-field to build a commercial scale PEM fuel cell stack, the performance of which shows about 42% higher than that of the older bipolar-plate design.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.331-334
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• 2009

Currently, the bipolar plates are fabricated mainly from graphite materials. However, metal bipolar plate are getting most attractive due to their good feasibility of mass production and low cost. In this study, metal bipolar plates for fuel cell Vehicles were developed with a concept based on the straight flow patterns to minimize the pressure drop and spring back. And molded gasket apply to the bipolar plate for improve sealing performance. Results show that the metal bipolar plate have a high potential to replace for graphite materials in fuel cell application.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.554-559
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• 2015

Single cell of PEMFC (polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell) is composed of bipolar plates, gasket, GDL and the MEA. Bipolar plate's function is the collecting electricity, helping oxygen/hydrogen gas diffuse evenly and draining the water and heat. In this work, we have conducted experiments to low contact resistance and improve the performance of a $25cm^2$ single cell by using metal forms. We have following experimental cases: 1) Conventional graphite serpentine channel bipolar plate; 2) Channel-less bipolar plate with nickel(Ni) based metal foam which coated by various materials. We focused the difference in contact resistance and performance of the single cell with metal foam depending on various coating materials. The experimental results show the similar performance of single cells between with serpentine channel bipolar plates and with channel-less bipolar plate using metal foams. In addition, single cell with metal foam shows potential to higher performance than conventional channel.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.313-320
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• 2002

The characteristics of the AISI bipolar plates have been investigated to replace the expensive graphite bipolar plates. It was found from the contact resistance evaluation of graphites, composites, and AISI that the contact resistance of AISI was the lowest, but it could approach to that of composites at higher compression forces. The single cell operation using the AISI bipolar plates revealed that the lower performance of the AISI single cell compared to the graphite one was due to not only the higher contact resistance but the flooding effect caused by high wettability of AISI. The performance of the AISI single cell could be improved if the channels were modified appropriately. The large size AISI single cell was operated to investigated the size effect on the performance.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.82.2-82.2
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• 2010

The development of bipolar plate having high efficiency and chemical properties has a major impact on fuel cell applications commercialization. Even though graphite bipolar plate has high electric conductivity and chemical resistance, it has demerits about mass production and brittle property for commercialization. Hence, metallic bipolar plate can be substitute for fuel cell bipolar plate. Although its inadequate corrosion behavior under PEMFC environment lead to a deterioration of membrane by dissolved metal ions, metallic bipolar plate for PEMFC is more suitable for automotive and residential power generation system because of its high mechanical strength, low gas permeability and applicability to mass production. Therefore, several types of coating has been applied to prevent corrosion and oxide film growth and to achieve more high durability. This work presents durability of coated metal bipolar plate for low temperature PEMFC which made for fuel cell vehicle. This results showed surface treatment increase long-term durability, even electric conductivity and corrosion resistance.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.291-297
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• 2003

As an alternative bipolar plate material for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), TiN-coated 316 stainless was evaluated in terms of electrical contact resistance and water contact angle. Performance and lifetime of the TiN-coated 316 bipolar plates were measured in comparison with those of graphite and bare 316 bipolar plates. At a cell voltage of 0.6 V, current density of the single cells using graphite, AISI 316, and TiN/316 bipolar plates was 996, 796, and $896mA/cm^2$, respectively. By coating 316 stainless steel with TiN layer, performance degradation rate determined to be the voltage degradation rate at a cell voltage of 0.6 V was reduced from 2.3 to 0.43 mV/h.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.646-648
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• 2008

The multi-films of a metallic film and a transparent conducting oxide (TCO, indium-tin oxide, ITO) film were formed on the stainless steel 316 and 304 plates by a sputtering method and an E-beam method and then the external metallic region of the stainless steel bipolar plates was converted into the metal nitride films through an annealing process. The multi-film formed on the stainless steel bipolar plates showed the XRD patterns of the typical indium-tin oxide, the metallic phase and the metal substrate and the external nitride film. The XRD pattern of the thin film on the bipolar plates modified showed two metal nitride phases of CrN and $Cr_2N$ compound. Surface microstructural morphology of the multi-film deposited bipolar plates was observed by AFM and FE-SEM. The electrical resistivity of the stainless steel bipolar plates modified was evaluated.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.161-166
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• 2008

The multi-films of a metallic film and a transparent conducting oxide (TCO, indium-tin oxide, ITO) film were formed on the stainless steel 316 and 304 plates by a sputtering method and an E-beam method and then the external metallic region of the stainless steel bipolar plates was converted into the metal nitride films through an annealing process. The multi-film formed on the stainless steel bipolar plates showed the XRD patterns of the typical indium-tin oxide, the metallic phase and the metal substrate and the external nitride film. The XRD pattern of the thin film on the bipolar plates modified showed two metal nitride phases of CrN and $Cr_2N$ compound. Surface microstructural morphology of the multi-film deposited bipolar plates was observed by AFM and FE-SEM. The metal nitride film formed on the stainless steel bipolar plates represented a microstructural morphology of fine columnar grains with 10 nm diameter and 60nm length in FE-SEM images. The electrical resistivity of the stainless steel bipolar plates modified was evaluated.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.171-178
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• 2013

In a polymer membrane fuel cell stack, the bipolar plate is a key element because it accounts for over 50% of total costs of the stack. In order to lower the cost of bipolar plates, 316L stainless steels coated with nitrides such as TiN and CrN by physical vapor deposition were investigated as alternative materials for the replacement of traditional brittle graphite bipolar-plates. For this purpose, interfacial contact resistances were measured and electrochemical corrosion tests were conducted. The results showed that although both TiN and CrN coatings decreased the interfacial contact resistances to less than $10m{\Omega}{\cdot}cm^2$, they did not significantly improve the corrosion resistance in simulated polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell environments. A CrN coating on 316L stainless steel showed better corrosion resistance than a TiN coating did, indicating the possibility of using modified CrN coated metallic bipolar plates to replace graphite bipolar plates.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.352-355
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• 2006

As the stainless steel has good corrosion resistance, mechanical property and ease of manufacture, it has been studied as the candidate material of metallic bipolar plate for automotive PIMFC. But, metal is dissolved under fuel cell operating conditions Dissolved ions contaminate a membrane electrode assembly (MEA) and, decrease the fuel cell performance. In addition, metal oxide formation on the surface of stainless steel increases the contact resistance in the fuel cell. These problems have been acted as an obstacle in the application of stainless steel to bipolar plate. Therefore, many kinds of coating technologies have been examined in order to solve these problems. In this study, stainless steel was coated in order to achieve high conductivity and corrosion resistance by several methods. Contact resistance was measured by using a tensile tester and impedance analyzer Corrosion characteristics of coated stainless steel were examined by Tafel-extrapolation method from the polarization curves in a solution simulating the anodic and cathodic environment of PEMFC. Fuel cell performance was also evaluated by single cell test. We tested various coated metal bipolar plate and conventional and graphite were also tested as comparative samples. In the result, coated stainless steel bipolar plate exhibited better cell performance than graphite to bipolar plate.