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Electroconductive structure, manufacturing method therefor, and separator for fuel cell

a technology of electroconductive structure and manufacturing method, which is applied in the direction of non-metal conductors, cell components, sustainable manufacturing/processing, etc., can solve the problems of increasing the cost, the method of substantially changing the overall temperature of the mold, and the inability to obtain sufficient electrical conductivity, so as to achieve superior conductive and heat radiation characteristics

Inactive Publication Date: 2009-12-10
SHOWA DENKO KK
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

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Benefits of technology

[0022]Although the molding method has also been arranged, the method for substantially changing the overall temperature of a mold as disclosed in Patent Document 4 requires too much time and energy to manufacture molded products at low cost. Further, reducing the temperature of the mold in an offhand manner cannot achieve electrical conductivity that is required for the structures. Although only the cavity surface temperature can efficiently be changed as disclosed in Patent Documents 5 and 6 to perform molding, when molding a high-speed-solidification highly conductive composition containing a great amount of conductive filler material and having a high heat conductivity, setting the surface temperature lower than the melting temperature of a thermoplastic resin composition allows the solidification of the resin to start before the completion of shaping, which often makes it difficult to obtain dimensionally accurate molded products.
[0028]The method for manufacturing a conductive structure according to any of aspects [1] to [3], wherein the conductive structure is hardened, cooled, and / or heat-treated while pressurized in the mold or while being pressurized in a sandwiched manner between corrective plates for preventing deformation of the conductive structure.[5]
[0043]The thus arranged conductive structure manufactured in accordance with the manufacturing method according to the present invention has superior conductive and heat radiation characteristics, and thereby is widely applicable to various applications and parts such as electronics, electrical appliances, machine parts, and automotive parts that have conventionally been difficult to realize, and in particular, is very useful as a separator for a fuel cell.

Problems solved by technology

Although various conductive structures composed of the respective conventional conductive resin compositions disclosed in the foregoing Patent Documents are used to substantially increase loading of conductive filler material to develop high electrical conductivity, because there has been no way to increase the content of resin to keep molding processability, this has resulted in inability to obtain sufficiently high electrical conductivity.
Further, the step of including baking structures at a high temperature of 1000 to 3000° C. for a long time to obtain high electrical conductivity suffers from a problem in that it takes a long time to manufacture and the manufacturing process becomes complicated, resulting in an increase in cost.
Although the molding method has also been arranged, the method for substantially changing the overall temperature of a mold as disclosed in Patent Document 4 requires too much time and energy to manufacture molded products at low cost.
Further, reducing the temperature of the mold in an offhand manner cannot achieve electrical conductivity that is required for the structures.
Although only the cavity surface temperature can efficiently be changed as disclosed in Patent Documents 5 and 6 to perform molding, when molding a high-speed-solidification highly conductive composition containing a great amount of conductive filler material and having a high heat conductivity, setting the surface temperature lower than the melting temperature of a thermoplastic resin composition allows the solidification of the resin to start before the completion of shaping, which often makes it difficult to obtain dimensionally accurate molded products.

Method used

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  • Electroconductive structure, manufacturing method therefor, and separator for fuel cell
  • Electroconductive structure, manufacturing method therefor, and separator for fuel cell

Examples

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examples

[0113]Examples of the present invention will hereinafter be described in further detail, but it is not restricted thereto. A method for measuring physical properties of a molded body will first be described hereinafter. The volume resistivity is measured by a four-pin probe method in conformity with JIS K7194.

[0114]The resistivity in a thickness direction is measured by a four-pin probe method as shown in FIG. 1. More specifically, four test pieces (50 mm×50 mm×2 mm) are stacked and sandwiched between two gold-coated brass plates to be pressurized uniformly at 2 MPa, and then a constant current of 1 A is applied between the gold-coated brass plates in the penetration direction to measure the voltage and thereby obtain the resistance (R1). Two test pieces are stacked similarly and sandwiched between gold-coated brass plates, and then the same measurement as above is made to obtain the resistance (R2). Further, the difference between the resistances (R1 and R2) is multiplied by the co...

examples 1 to 5

[0130]The primary materials according to the compositions shown in Tables 1 and 2 were kneaded using a Laboplastmill (model 100C100 manufactured by Toyo Seiki Seisaku-Sho, Ltd.) at a temperature of 200° C. and 45 rpm for 7 minutes to obtain crystalline thermoplastic resin composite material. The composite material was placed in a mold capable of molding a flat plate of 100 mm×100 mm (the thickness varies for each physical property test item), and then pressurized and heated using a 50 t compression molding machine A (E-3013 manufactured by Nippon Engineering Co., Ltd.) at a temperature of 230° C. and a pressure of 15 MPa for 3 minutes after 3-minute preheating. Subsequently, the mold was taken out of the compression molding machine A in a hot state, and immediately pressurized using a 50 t compression molding machine B (E-3013 manufactured by Nippon Engineering Co., Ltd.), the heat treatment temperature of which was set as shown in Table 3, at a pressure of 15 MPa for 10 minutes. Th...

example 10

[0136]The composite material 5 was placed in a mold capable of molding a flat plate of 100 mm×100 mm (the thickness varies for each physical property test item), and then pressurized and heated using the 50 t compression molding machine A at a temperature of 230° C. and a pressure of 15 MPa for 3 minutes after 3-minute preheating. Then, the mold was cooled using a cooling press at a temperature of 25° C. and a pressure of 15 MPa for 2 minutes to obtain a conductive structure. The conductive structure was further inserted in a mold, and then heated and pressurized using the 50 t compression molding machine B, the heat treatment temperature of which was set to 155° C., at a pressure of 15 MPa for 120 minutes. Then, the mold was cooled using a cooling press at a temperature of 25° C. and a pressure of 15 MPa for 2 minutes to obtain the conductive structure. The results obtained in the tenth example are summarized in Table 5 below.

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Abstract

The present invention provides a method for manufacturing a conductive structure having high electrical conductivity, and a method for manufacturing a dimensionally accurate separator for a fuel cell having high electrical conductivity. In the present invention, the cavity surface temperature of a mold is kept equal to or higher than the crystal melting temperature (Tm) of composite material until the shaping of the composite material melted in the mold is completed, and after the completion of the shaping process, the cavity surface temperature of the mold is controlled to be equal to or higher than a temperature 20° C. lower than the crystallization temperature (Tc) of the composite material but equal to or lower than a temperature 20° C. higher than the crystallization temperature of the composite material to harden the composite material.

Description

[0001]The present application claims priority on Japanese Patent Application No. 2004-145235 filed on May 14, 2004, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. The present application also claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 573,348 filed on May 24, 2004.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]1. Field of the Invention[0003]The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a conductive structure. In more detail, the present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a electroconductive structure made of crystalline thermoplastic resin composite material containing conductive filler material and having high electrical conductivity and heat resistance obtained by increasing the degree of crystallinity of the composite material, and to a method for manufacturing a separator for a fuel cell.[0004]2. Description of Related Art[0005]There have conventionally been used mainly metallic materials and / or carbon materials, etc., for applicat...

Claims

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Application Information

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IPC IPC(8): H01M2/16H01B1/20H01B13/00H01M8/02
CPCH01M8/0204H01M8/0206H01M8/0213Y02E60/50H01M8/0226H01M8/0228H01M8/0221Y02P70/50B82Y30/00H01M8/02
Inventor ARAI, TOSHIHIROSAKAMOTO, HIROSHIKOBAYASHI, TOMOAKI
Owner SHOWA DENKO KK