PEM fuel cell stack

US6720104B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• DMC2 Degussa Metal Catalysts Cerdec AG · DE

Inventors

• Ralf Zuber · Großostheim, DE
• Armin Bayer · Alzenau, DE
• Heike Kuhnhold · Bruchköbel, DE
• Udo Stenke · Mainaschaff, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Aug 21, 2001
• Grant date: Apr 13, 2004
• Expiry date: Jul 23, 2022

Classification

• Technology area (CPC Y): Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
• CPC primary: Y02T90/40
• WIPO field: Electrical machinery, apparatus, energy
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

A PEM fuel cell stack including one or more fuel cells (1) arranged on top of one another, each of which contains a membrane electrode assembly (2) between two electrically conductive bipolar plates (3,4), the surfaces of which are equipped with flow channels (10) open on one side for the supply of reactive gases, whereby the membrane electrode assemblies each comprise a polymer electrolyte membrane (5), both sides of which are in contact with a reaction layer (6,7), whereby the surface area of the reaction layers is smaller than that of the polymer electrolyte membrane and a compressible, coarse-pore gas distribution layer (8,9) made from carbon fiber fabric is inserted between each reaction layer and the adjacent bipolar plates congruent to the reaction lawyers along with seals (11,12) in the area outside the surface covered by the gas distribution layers, whereby the gas distribution layers in the no-load condition display a thickness D1 and the seals a thickness D2. The PEM fuel cell stack is featured by the gas distribution layers in the PEM fuel cell stack being compressed to 25 to 60% of the original thickness.