• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
• /
• v.47 no.11
• /
• pp.722-727
• /
• 2009

The bipolar plates are not only the major part of the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack in weight and volume, but also a significant contributor to the stack costs. Stainless steels are considered to be good candidates for bipolar plate materials of the PEMFC due to their low cost, high strength and easy machining, as well as corrosion resistance. In this paper, 316L stainless steel with and without nitrogen ion implantation were tested in simulated PEMFC environments for application as bipolar plates. The results showed that the nitride formed by nitrogen ion implantation contributed the decrease of the interfacial contact resistance without degradation of corrosion property. The combination of excellent properties indicated that nitrogen ion implanted stainless steel could be potential candidate materials as bipolar plates in PEMFC. Current efforts have focused on optimizing the condition of ion implantation.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2009.11a
• /
• pp.172-175
• /
• 2009

A bipolar plate is an important component in a fuel cell in the sense of cost and weight. This study aimed at developing highly conductive, lightweight, and low cost bipolar plates. Hybrid carbons filled poly(phenylene sulfide)(PPS) composite bipolar plates were prepared by using the compression molding technique. Various types and amounts of conducting carbon fillers such as graphite, carbon black, carbon fibers, and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were adopted for the composites. Electrical conductivity and mechanical properties of the composites were measured in order to investigate effects of each components of fillers. When the graphite is only used as a conducting filler, the electrical conductivity of the composites increases with increasing the content, but the flexural strength decreases dramatically. However, for CNTs and carbon fibers, the flexural strength initially increases and then decreases with increasing the amount of the conducting fillers. The amount of graphite corresponding to the peak of flexural strength was moved to lower content with increasing the amount of CNTs or carbon fiber. When hybrid conducting fillers such as fibrous and particulate fillers were used, the synergy effect in mechanical and electrical properties was observed.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.104-109
• /
• 2007

Single fuel cell was fabricated with a MEA (membrane electrode assembly) that had a $4cm^2$ active area and with silicon bipolar plates those were introduced to miniaturize the fuel cell by replacing heavy weight graphite plates. Optimum humidification condition for the single cell was selected based on performance results obtained varying humidifier temperature at a fixed feed rate of hydrogen and oxygen. Furthermore, to study the effect of humidification condition on the performance of a fuel cell stack, the fuel cell stack consisting of two MEAs and silicon bipolar plates was studied, then problems and characteristics of silicon-based fuel cell stack were examined.

• New & Renewable Energy
• /
• v.3 no.3
• /
• pp.14-19
• /
• 2007

A flow channel model of a bipolar plate with varying cross-sectional area was newly designed for improving performance and efficiency of a PEM fuel cell stack. As a result, the varying cross-sectional area model showed poor uniformity in velocity distribution, however, maximum velocity in the flow path is about 30% faster than that of the uniform cross-sectional area model. The proposed varying cross-sectional area model is expected to diffuse operating fluids more easily into diffusion layer because it has relatively higher values in pressure distribution compared with other flow channel models. It is expected that the implementation of the varying cross-sectional area model can reduce not only the mass transport loss but also the activation loss in a PEM fuel cell, and open circuit voltage of a fuel cell can thus be increased slightly.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.131-138
• /
• 2014

Highly conductive bipolar plate for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) was prepared using phenol novolac-type epoxy/graphite powder (GP)/carbon fiber filament (CFF) composite, and a rubber-modified epoxy resin was introduced in order to give elasticity to the bipolar plate graphite fiber (GF) was incorporated in order to improve electrical conductivity. To find out the cure condition of the mixture of novolac-type and rubber-modified epoxies, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was carried out and their data were introduced to Kissinger equation. And tensile and flexural tests were carried out using universal testing machine (UTM) and the surface morphology of the fractured specimen and the interfacial bonding between epoxy matrix and CFF or GF were observed by a scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

• Corrosion Science and Technology
• /
• v.13 no.6
• /
• pp.224-232
• /
• 2014

Effect of pretreatments on the graphene coated bipolar plate of proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) was investigated in simulated environments for PEMFC by using electrochemical measurement techniques. Interfacial contact resistance(ICR) between the graphene coated bipolar plate and the gas diffusion layer(GDL) was measured. The value of ICR decreased with an increase in compaction stress($20N/cm^2{\sim}220N/cm^2$). ICR of graphene coated bipolar plate was higher than that of bare 316L stainless steel. However, Potentiodynamic measurement results showed that the corrosion resistance of graphene coated bipolar plate was higher than that of bare 316L stainless steel. $H_2SO_4$ acid pretreatment was the most effective among various pretreatments. The lowest ICR and the corrosion current density were obtained when using $H_2SO_4$ solution pretreatment.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2010.11a
• /
• pp.90.2-90.2
• /
• 2010

The coated metallic bipolar plates are getting attractive due to their good feasibility of mass production, low contact resistance, high electrical/thermal conductivity, low gas permeability and good mechanical strength comparing with graphite materials. Yet, metallic bipolar plates for polymer electrolyte membrane(PEM) fuel cells typically require coatings for corrosion protection. Other requirements for the corrosion protective coatings include low electrical contact resistance between metallic bipolar plate and gas diffusion layer, good mechanical robustness, low mechanical and fabrication cost. The authors have evaluated a number of protective coatings deposited on stainless steel substrate by electroplating. The coated metallic bipolar plates are investigated with an electrochemical polarization tests, salt dipping tests, adhesion tests for corrosion resistance and then the contact resistance was measured. The results showed that the selective samples electroplated with optimized method, satisfied the DOE target for corrosion resistance and contact resistance, and also were very stabilized in the typical fuel cell environments in the long-term.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
• /
• v.28 no.5
• /
• pp.492-501
• /
• 2017

A 900 W scale direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) stack is designed and fabricated for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) applications. To meet the volume and weight requirements, metallic bipolar plates are applied to the DMFC stack for the first time wherein POS470FC was chosen as bipolar plate material. To ensure good robustness of the metallic bipolar plate based DMFC stack, finite element method based simulations are conducted using a commercial ANSYS Fluent software. The stress buildup and deformation characteristics on bipolar plates and end plates are analyzed in details. The present DMFC stack exhibits the performance of 1,130 W at 32 V and 35.3 A, clearly demonstrating that it could successfully operate for UAVs requiring around 1,000 W of power.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.330-338
• /
• 2021

An integral electrode-bipolar plate assembly, which is composed of electrode, conductive adhesive film (CAF) and bipolar plate, has been developed and evaluated for application with a vanadium redox flow battery (VRB) to decrease contact resistance between electrode and bipolar plate. The CAF, made of EVA (ethylene-vinyl-acetate) material with carbon black or CNT (Carbon Nano Tube), is applied between the electrode and the bipolar plate to enable an integral assembly by adhesion. In order to evaluate the integral assembly of VRB by adhesive film, the resistivity of integral assembly and the performance of single cell were investigated. Thus, it was verified that the integral assembly is applicable to redox flow battery. Through resistance and contact resistance of bare EVA and CAF films on bipolar plate were changed. Among the adhesive films, CAF film coated with carbon black showed the lowest value in through resistance, and CAF film coated with CNT showed the lowest value in contact resistance, respectively. The efficiency of VRB single cell was improved by applying CAF films coated with carbon black and CNT, resulting in the reduced overvoltage in charging process. Therefore, the energy efficiency of both CAF films, about 84%, were improved than that of blank cell, about 79.5 % under current density at 40 mA cm^-2. The energy efficiency of the two cells were similar, but carbon black coated CAF improved the coulomb efficiency and CNT coated CAF improved the voltage efficiency, respectively.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.268-273
• /
• 2014

The forming, reset and set operation of bipolar resistive random access memory (RRAM) have been predicted by using a finite element (FE) model which includes interface effects. To the best of our knowledge, our bipolar RRAM model is applicable to realistic cell structure optimization because our model is based on the FE method (FEM) unlike precedent models.