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

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.