Bac2 is the developer of ElectroPhen, an electrically conductive plastic that is used as the resin component of carbon composite bipolar plates for Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) and Direct Methanol (DM) fuel cell stacks. Up to 30% of the cost of PEM fuel cell stacks, the most popular types, can come from the bipolar plates and end plates that interconnect individual cells and provide connections to the outside world. The bipolar plates have to conduct electricity, keep the reaction gasses separated and channel away waste water and heat from the reaction.

Early plates were made from graphite which performs the function very well but is a machined component and thus too expensive for significant scale up. Metal plates have also been used, but these have to be passivated to avoid corrosion issues and the poisoning of the fuel cell catalyst. This passivation process adds significantly to the cost of the metal plates. As a result there is a general industry focus on mouldable carbon composite plates

Companies have so far used non conducting resins to bind together conductive fillers (usually graphite) to produce the composite plates. This sounds counter-intuitive and is due to the fact that, until now no conductive polymer existed that was cheap enough to be used as a composite binder. Bac2's ElectroPhen now meets that criteria. ElectroPhen also cures at room temperature allowing low cost tooling and fast turnaround.

Bac2 is continually optimising its ElectroPhen bipolar plates and will be able to offer its customers plates that are optimised for conductivity, robustness or simply cost depending on the client's end application area.

Bac2 is keen to hear from any potential customers to discuss their bipolar plate requirements.