Titanium is the most common Bipolar Plate (BPP) material used in Proton Exchange Membrane Water Electrolyzers (PEMWE) today, but compared to other metals, titanium is expensive, hard to machine and a critical raw material. The objective of this work has been to reduce the cost of BPPs for PEMWE by using stainless steel instead of titanium as base material. However, the electrochemical potential inside an operating PEMWE can reach 2 V vs the standard hydrogen electrode (SHE) which will result in corrosion of bare stainless steel. Corrosion resistant titanium-based coatings have thus been added to the steel surface by use of magnetron sputtering. Ex-situ corrosion testing of the different coatings in a simulated PEMWE environment has been performed. Initial testing has shown that titanium coated stainless steel is a promising alternative to titanium BPPs.

Subject
Costs, Test methods, Coating performance, Water, Coatings, Materials, Substrates, Oxide layers, Current densities, Sputter deposition, Titanium, Stainless steel, Electrode potential
Keywords:
Bipolar Plates, Stainless Steel, Coating, Titanium, PEM Water Electrolysis
© 2023 Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of AMPP. Positions and opinions advanced in this work are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of AMPP. Responsibility for the content of the work lies solely with the author(s).
2023
Association for Materials Protection and Performance (AMPP)
You do not currently have access to this content.