Patent ID: 8202637

Claim:
A method for taking out sealing plates of a fuel cell one by one from a stack of sealing plates, the sealing plates being installed to a gas inlet-outlet passage of a fuel cell separator so as to cover a gas passage groove formed at the gas inlet-outlet passage, said method comprising the steps of: forming an air layer between adjacent sealing plates which are in a stack of sealing plates; and taking out one or more sealing plates from the stack of sealing plates using a suction pad while the air layer is formed between the adjacent sealing plates, conducting a two sealing plate taking-out preventing step between the step of taking out the sealing plate and a step of installing a single taken-out sealing plate to the fuel cell, wherein the two sealing plate taking-out preventing step comprises placing the one or more sealing plates taken out at the sealing plate taking-out step on a suction plate, then sucking the taken-out one or more sealing plates from opposite sides thereof by the suction plate and a suction pad, and stopping conveyance of the more than one sealing plates to the step of installing the sealing plate to the fuel cell when taking-out of more than one sealing plates is detected, and wherein the suction pad of the fuel cell sealing plate taking-out step is used as it is as the suction pad of the two fuel cell sealing plate taking-out preventing step.