Making Bipolar Plates for PEM Fuel Cells

Ruge and Biichi (2001) give a very good summary of the material requirements of the bipolar plate if it is to fulfill these requirements. These are as follows  

The material must also be able to be manufactured within the following requirements  

The methods for forming these bipolar plates, and the materials they are made from, vary considerably. As with humidification methods considered in the previous section, there is no single method or material that is clearly the best. It would be good if we could consider the materials separately from the manufacturing methods. Unfortunately, this is not possible, as many of the candidate materials are formed during the manufacturing process, and so the two aspects of the bipolar plate - how it is made and what it is made from - must be considered as one. 

Before describing some of the most promising and widely used processes, we should note one feature of bipolar plate manufacture that is common to many - that the plate is 

We will now consider a range of the different materials and processes used. 

---