Sealing method and apparatus for a fuel cell stack

Abstract

A fuel cell stack includes a stack of flow plates, a first gasket that is compatible with a coolant and a second gasket that is incompatible with the coolant. The stack of flow plates includes openings to form a coolant passageway that communicates the coolant and a reactant manifold passageway. The second gasket forms a seal around the reactant manifold passageway between an adjacent pair of the plates. The first gasket forms a seal around the coolant manifold passageway between the adjacent pair of plates. At least one region of a particular plate may be associated with a reactant flow, and this plate may include internal passageways that extend between manifold passageways to communicate a coolant. A seal that is substantially permanent isolates the internal passageways from the region(s) of the fuel cell plate that may be associated with reactant flow(s).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.