Thermal conductivity of a graphite bipolar plate (BPP) and its thermal contact resistance with fuel cell gas diffusion layers: Effect of compression, PTFE, micro porous layer (MPL), BPP out-of-flatness and cyclic load

This paper reports on measurements of thermal conductivity of a graphite bipolar plate (BPP) as a function of temperature and its thermal contact resistance (TCR) with treated and untreated gas diffusion layers (GDLs). The thermal conductivity of the BPP decreases with temperature and its thermal contact resistance with GDIs, which has been overlooked in the literature, is found to be dominant over a relatively wide range of compression. The effects of PTFE loading, micro porous layer (MPL), compression, and BPP out-of-flatness are also investigated experimentally. It is found that high PTFE loadings, MPL and even small BPP out-of-flatness increase the BPP-GDL thermal contact resistance dramatically. The paper also presents the effect of cyclic load on the total resistance of a GDL-BPP assembly, which sheds light on the behavior of these materials under operating conditions in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.