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US 8,802,326 B2Granted
Fuel cell separator plate
AssigneeGM Global Technology Operations LLC
InventorsSteven J. Spencer, Seth D. Valentine, Courtney E. Reich, Daniel P Miller
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A fuel cell stack and a bipolar plate assembly is provided that may include straight-through tunnels to transport fluids from one side of a header seal to an opposite side of a header seal, fluidly connecting fuel cell stack reactant headers and bipolar plate reactant flow channels.
Claims18
A product comprising:
- a fuel cell stack comprising a plurality of adjacent bipolar plates and a reactant header, the reactant header comprising a first header opening in each of the bipolar plates and a header seal disposed between each adjacent bipolar plate and circumscribing each of its adjacent first header openings, wherein each bipolar plate further comprises reactant flow channels and a first tunnel region fluidly connecting the reactant flow channels and the reactant header and wherein at least one of the first tunnel regions comprises a straight-through tunnel extending straight through the header seal.
A product comprising:
- a bipolar plate comprising stamped anode and cathode reactant plates, each reactant plate comprising reactant flow channels and a header opening aligned with the header opening of the other reactant plate, the bipolar plate further comprising a tunnel region located between the aligned header openings and the reactant flow channels, the tunnel region comprising one or more tunnels, wherein all of the tunnels of the bipolar plate are formed in only one of the reactant plates.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.