Application of Carbon Coated Stainless Steel for Bipolar Plate in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell

Stainless steel bipolar plates for the polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell offer many advantages over conventional machined graphite. Austenitic stainless steel 316L is a traditional candidate for metal bipolar plates.During a long operation time, metal oxide formation leads to contact resistance, and metal dissolution can cause contamination of the membrane electrode assembly (MEA). A pure Carbon was coated on the surface of Stainless steel and provided a good anticorrosion layer. The carbon film has a low area specific resistance compared to the composite coating because it has a high surface conductivity. In addition, The ICR between the carbon-coated SS316 and the carbon paper is 225–1247 mΩ-cm² under compaction forces between 20 and 280 N cm⁻². The carbon-coated SS316L shows good corrosion resistance in the simulated PEMFC environment. After testing the single cell for 4000hr, the power density was decay less than 1%. Therefore, the carbon-coated SS316L has an excellent durability property.

Key words : fuel cell, carbon and bipolar plate