Patent ID: 7455701

Claim:
A bipolar cooling plate module for a fuel cell stack, the bipolar cooling plate module comprising: terminal plates including a cathode-side terminal plate and an anode-side terminal plate, said terminal plates having first plate surfaces facing towards electrodes selected from the group consisting of a cathode and an anode, said first plate surfaces having first sealing grooves formed therein for accommodating a sealing material for sealing interfaces with said electrodes, said cathode-side terminal plate and said anode-side terminal plate having mutually facing second plate surfaces acting as cooling surfaces with mutually complementary second sealing grooves formed therein for accommodating said sealing material for sealing a gap defined between said cooling surfaces, at least one of said cooling surfaces having a coolant distribution structure of open channels formed therein being enclosed by a respective one of said second sealing grooves; an integral sealing element formed of said sealing material being an injected-molded sealing material encompassing and/or penetrating both off said terminal plates, fixing said terminal plates in position and holding said terminal plates together as a composite, said integral sealing element filling said second sealing grooves on said cooling surfaces and sealing said gap between said cooling surfaces, and further filling said first sealing grooves on said first plate surfaces facing towards the electrodes and sealing said interfaces between said cathode-side terminal plate and the cathode and between said anode-side terminal plate and the anode; and a compressible conducting two-dimensional element lying in said gap defined between said cooling surfaces of said terminal plates, said element having a compression reserve greater than a shrinkage in thickness, due to cooling, of said sealing material in said second sealing grooves, said element extending only over a region of said cooling surfaces of said terminal plates enclosed by said second sealing grooves filled with said sealing material, in which said coolant distribution structure is disposed.