Modeling, design, materials and fabrication of bipolar plates for proton exchange membrane fuel cell: A review

Kangning Xiong, Wei Wu, Shuangfeng Wang and Lin Zhang

Applied Energy, 2021, vol. 301, issue C, No S0306261921008333

Abstract: Bipolar plate is one of the most significant components of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell, which serves as the function of reactant gases supply, reaction products removal, current collection, structural support and so on. How to obtain superior bipolar plate, including uniform gas distribution, good water management, lower pressure drop, higher power density, lower cost, high mechanical strength, and easy fabricating, has become a technical challenge and future trend. This article aims to provide a comprehensive review of major findings of researches on modeling, flow field design, materials, and fabricating process of bipolar plate in recent year. The results demonstrate that the three-dimensional, steady-state, multi-phase, computational fluid dynamics model have become the most popular simulation method to assess the flow field design of bipolar plate. Also, the influencing factors, such as channel-land (rib) dimensions, baffles and flow channel shape, are considered as the significant elements that guide the flow field design and affect the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell. In addition, due to lower interfacial contact resistance, better corrosion resistance and lower cost, the coated stainless steel bipolar plates have shown greater advantages and potentialities in comparison to other bipolar plates. Four common fabricating methods are proposed to solve the metal plate processing problem. Finally, this review is expected to provide the guidance for the future development of bipolar plates.

Keywords: Bipolar plate; Proton exchange membrane fuel cell; Modeling; Flow field design; Materials; Fabricating methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261921008333
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:301:y:2021:i:c:s0306261921008333

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.117443

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().