Hydrophilic treatment of bipolar plates for stable fuel cell stack operation at low power

摘要

A flow field plate or bipolar plate for a fuel cell having a hydrophilic coating formed on flow field channels passing through a tunnel region between an active area of the cell and the inlet and outlet manifolds. The flow field plates are an assembly of a cathode-side unipolar plate and an anode-side unipolar plate. The hydrophilic coating is deposited on the unipolar plates before the unipolar plates are assembled into the flow field plate so that visual deposition processes can be used to coat the flow field channels in the tunnel region. The unipolar plates may be any suitable fuel cell unipolar plates, such as stamped unipolar plates or composite unipolar plates.