Hydrophilic fuel cell bipolar plate having a plasma induced polymerization coating
AssigneeGM Global Technology Operations LLC
InventorsGayatri Vyas, Tao Xie, Thomas A. Trabold
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Abstract
A fuel cell electrically conductive element is provided with a polymeric surface comprising a flow field, at least a part of the flow field having a grafted, permanently hydrophilic, polymer coating. The element is made by applying a layer of a monomer mixture of a hydrophilic, ethylenically-unsaturated monomer and a crosslinking monomer to the electrically conductive element surface and polymerizing the applied monomer mixture layer with a plasma whereby the polymerized layer is grafted to the polymeric surface.
Claims14
A fuel cell electrically conductive element, comprising a thermoplastic polymeric surface comprising a flow field, at least a part of the flow field having a permanently hydrophilic, crosslinked polymer coating that is formed from a mixture of a first ethylenically-unsaturated monomer having a hydrophilic group and a second distinct crosslinking monomer having at least one ethylenically unsaturated group for crosslinking, wherein said mixture comprises about 50 to about 99 parts by weight of said first hydrophilic monomer and about 1 to about 50 parts by weight of said second crosslinking monomer, and said mixture forms said polymer coating grafted to the polymeric surface after cross-linking.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.