Additive manufactured bipolar plate for high-efficiency hydrogen production in proton exchange membrane electrolyzer cells

作者：Yang, Gaoqiang; Mo, Jingke; Kang, Zhenye; List, Frederick A., III; Green, Johney B., Jr.; Babu, Sudarsanam S.; Zhang, Feng-Yuan^*

来源：International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 2017, 42(21): 14734-14740.

DOI：10.1016/j.ijhydene.2017.04.100

• Additive manufacturing
• Bipolar plate
• PEM electrolyzer cell
• Hydrogen production
• Stainless steel
• Selective laser melting

Additive manufacturing (AM) technology is capable of fast and low-cost prototyping from complex 3D digital models. To take advantage of this technology, a stainless steel (SS) plate with parallel flow field served as a combination of a cathode bipolar plate and a current distributor; it was fabricated using selective laser melting (SLM) techniques and investigated in a proton exchange membrane electrolyzer cell (PEMEC) in-situ for the first time. The experimental results show that the PEMEC with an AM SS cathode bipolar plate can achieve an excellent performance for hydrogen production for a voltage of 1.779 V and a current density of 2.0 A/cm(2). The AM SS cathode bipolar plate was also characterized by SEM and EDS, and the results show a uniform elemental distribution across the plate with very limited oxidization. This research demonstrates that AM method could be a route to aid cost-effective and rapid development of PEMECs.

• 出版日期2017-5-25