Cost-benefit analysis of commercial bipolar plates for PEMFC's

Identification of suitable materials for making high performance fuel cell stacks is of major importance, since the performance of a PEM fuel cell stack depends on the materials, especially in terms of their weight, cost, and corrosion stability. The weight of the fuel cell stack and thus the power density especially depends on the bipolar plates. In this paper we report the performance, heat generation, cost and weight analysis for a 1 kW PEM fuel cell stack system built with two types of commercial graphite plates. Cost benefit analysis has also been carried out using a design for manufacture and assembly technique (DMAT) by taking into consideration the fuel cell performance, stack configuration, repetitive units and fixed costs.