US Patent Issued to Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Toyota Jidosha on Dec. 30 for "Metal foam gas diffusion layers with hydrophilic surfaces and polymer-electrolyte-membrane fuel cells with metal foam gas diffusion layers" (Michigan Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 31 -- United States Patent no. 12,512,482, issued on Dec. 30, was assigned to Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America Inc. (Plano, Texas) and Toyota Jidosha K.K. (Toyota, Japan).

"Metal foam gas diffusion layers with hydrophilic surfaces and polymer-electrolyte-membrane fuel cells with metal foam gas diffusion layers" was invented by Gaohua Zhu (Ann Arbor, Mich.) and Shailesh N. Joshi (Ann Arbor, Mich.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A bipolar plate-gas diffusion layer (GDL) assembly for a polymer-electrolyte-membrane (PEM) fuel cell includes a flat metallic bipolar plate and a porous metal GDL with superhydrophilic surfaces adjacent to and in direct contac...