质子交换膜燃料电池极板及其表面改性研究进展

Research progress on surface modification of bipolar plates for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

摘要:

在质子交换膜燃料电池（Proton exchange membrane fuel cells，PEMFCs）的部件中，双极板是重要组成部分。双极板约占燃料电池成本、质量、体积的40 %、80 %、50 %。传统的PEMFC因为石墨双极板的材料、工艺等问题，造成其体积和质量较大，这增加了汽车的重量，缩小了汽车底盘地可用空间，影响了质子交换膜燃料电池汽车的性能。因此开发体积小、成本低、制备工艺简单的双极板对推进质子交换膜燃料电池的商业化应用具有重要意义。金属双极板因其成本低、力学性能好、导电性、导热性、体积相对易控等特点，在PEMFC领域备受关注。但金属双极板在PEMFC环境中易生成钝化膜，导致其接触电阻增加。因此，如何在提高金属双极板耐蚀性的同时，保持良好的导电性，是当前对PEMFC研究的重点。本文综述了石墨、复合材料和金属双极板制备工艺及表面改性方法。讨论了双极板及其表面碳化物涂层、金属涂层和氮化物涂层的优缺点，并比较了这些涂层在PEMFC环境下的耐腐蚀性和界面接触电阻性能。

Abstract:

In PEMFCs components, the bipolar plate is the most important part due to its high proportion of the cost, volume, and mass of PEMFC (45 %, 80 %, and 50 %).Because of the material and process problems of the bipolar plate, the volume and mass of the traditional graphite PEMFC are relatively large, which increases the weight of the vehicle, reduces the available space of the vehicle chassis, and affects the performance of the PEMFC vehicle. Therefore, the development of a lightweight, low-cost, simple preparation process for the bipolar plate is of great significance to promote its commercial application.The metal bipolar plate has attracted much attention in the PEMFC field because of its low cost, good mechanical properties, electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and relatively easy-to-control volume. However, in the PEMFC environment, the metal bipolar plate is easy to form a passivation film, which leads to an increase in its contact resistance. Therefore, improving the corrosion resistance of metal bipolar plates and maintaining good conductivity are the main focus of current research on PEMFC.Our review summarized the graphite, composite, and metal bipolar plate preparation process or surface modification methods, and discussed the advantages and disadvantages of bipolar plate or surface-covered carbide coatings, metal coatings, and nitride coatings. in addition, we compared the corrosion resistance and interfacial contact resistance performance of these coatings under the PEMFC environment.