Flexible PEM fuel cells are believed to be next-generation energy devices such as applications for medical, smartphones, wearable, and so on. To this end, additive manufacturing has been widely utilized by industries and research fields these days owing to its flexibility in supporting complex structures based on efficient and rapid 3D manufacturing. This work presents a 3D-printed flow-field plate for flexible PEM fuel cells, thereby rapid prototyping is achieved because of avoiding the conventional complicated preparation process. Moreover, although lower Pt catalyst loading, flexible PEMFCs with 3D-printed flow-field plates exhibit comparable performance compared to conventional flexible flow field plates made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS).

 

The electrochemical performance was improved depending on increasing bending curvature. I performed finite element analysis (FEA) with my colleague (H. Yoo) to demonstrate this performance enhancement, which confirmed the acquirement of better interfacial contact owing to elevating compressive stress over fuel cells. Also, I recommended and advised my colleague on the overall graphical design (graphs and rendering) for obtaining better readability and visibility. Please see below the achievement details of this research.

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