Evaluation of Ni-Mo and Ni-Mo-P Electroplated Coatings on Stainless Steel for PEM Fuel Cells Bipolar Plates

• Stainless steel bipolar plates (BPPs) are the preferred choice for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs); however, a surface coating is needed to minimize contact resistance and corrosion. In this paper, Ni–Mo and Ni–Mo–P coatings were electroplated on stainless steel BPPs and investigated by XRD, SEM/EDX, AFM and contact angle measurements. The performance of the BPPs was studied by corrosion and conduction tests and by measuring their interfacial contact resistances (ICRs) ex situ in a PEMFC set-up at varying clamping pressure, applied current and temperature. The results revealed that the applied coatings significantly reduce the ICR and corrosion rate of stainless steel BPP. All the coatings presented stable performance and the coatings electroplated at 100 mA cm−2showed even lower ICR than graphite. The excellent properties of the coatings compared to native oxide film of the bare stainless steel are due to their higher contact angle, crystallinity and roughness, improving hydrophobicity and electrical conductivity. Hence, the electroplated coatings investigated in this study have promising properties for stainless steel BPPs and are potentially good alternatives for the graphite BPP in PEMFC.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Materialteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Materials Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Alloys

Bipolar Plate

Electroplated Coatings

Fuel Cells

Interfacial Contact Resistance

Molybdenum

PEM Fuel Cell

Wettability

Alloying

Coatings

Contact angle

Contact resistance

Corrosion

Corrosion rate

Gas fuel purification

Graphite

Nickel

Oxide films

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC)

Wetting

Bipolar plates

Electrical conductivity

Electroplated coating

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFCs)

Stable performance

Stainless steel bipolar plates

Stainless steel

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)