TY - JOUR AU - Guo, Qianyuan AU - Sun, Haoyang TI - Review of the forming progress and challenges of carbon-resin composite bipolar plates and their flow field JO - Energy Materials PY - 2026 VL - 6 IS - 7 SP - EP - 600076 SN - ISSN 2770-5900 (Online) AB -

With the rapid development of large-scale energy storage technologies, redox flow batteries are considered a promising pathway for large-scale energy storage due to their advantages of decoupled energy and power, long cycle life, and high safety. As key components that affect battery efficiency and lifetime, bipolar plates not only serve as current collectors and structural supports but also enable electrolyte distribution via surface flow fields. Carbon-resin composite bipolar plates have become a research hotspot due to their outstanding compositional tunability and structural design flexibility. Adding a flow field to these bipolar plates can efficiently enhance battery efficiency without the need for additional material development. But as flow field structures become increasingly complex, carbon-resin composite bipolar plates face new manufacturing challenges during flow field forming. Unlike previous reviews that focus solely on the forming of bipolar plates while neglecting the additional challenges posed by flow fields, this review summarizes recent progress in material design optimization and structural innovation for carbon-resin composite bipolar plates. It analyzes the design characteristics of various flow field structures and their corresponding forming challenges. These insights provide a reference for further improvement and large-scale manufacturing of carbon-resin composite bipolar plates with integrated flow fields.

KW - Vanadium redox flow batteries KW - carbon-resin composite bipolar plate KW - flow field forming challenge DO - 10.20517/energymater.2026.44 UR - https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/energymater.2026.44