With phenol formaldehyde resin (PF) powder and graphite powder as raw materials, a kind of conductive composite for bipolar plate is obtained by hot-pressure molding. The effects of PF resin content, molding temperature and time on conductivity and bending strength of the composite were investigated in this paper; and the optimum PF resin content, molding temperature and time were obtained. The results show that: the conductivity decreases and bending strength increases with the increasing of PF resin content; the conductivity varies wave-like and bending strength increases firstly and then decreases with the increasing of molding temperature; the effects of molding time on properties of the composite are similar to that of molding temperature; and the best conductivity and bending strength of the composite are 142 s cm(-1) and 61.6 MPa, respectively, when its PF resin content is 15% molded at 240 degrees C for 60 min. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.