Bipolar Plates: Different Materials and Processing Methods for Their Usage in Fuel Cells

Graphite composites based bipolar plates are a preferred material for stationary PEM fuel cell applications, because they are resistant against high temperatures and corrosive conditions. This chapter gives an overview about different material configurations as well as the most important parameters and characterization methods for graphite based bipolar plates. It describes the actual generation PPS based composite materials with improved long-term stability. It introduces the most common materials and gives an overview about interactions between other stack components, characterization and processing, great care should be taken in constructing the bipolar plates.