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Silicon nitride ceramics were prepared by new nitrided pressureless sintering (NPS) process in this study. The microstructures, strengths and thermal properties of the NPS silicon nitride ceramics containing three types of Al2O3 and Y2O3 sintering additives were investigated. Additionally, we have investigated the effect of silicon metal contents changing with 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 wt% in each composition. The silicon nitride was successfully densified using NPS process, particularly at the starting composition of 5 wt.% Al2O3, 5 wt.% Y2O3, and 5 wt.% Si addition. The maximum flexural strengths and relative densities of these specimens were 500 MPa and 98%, respectively. The flexural strength of sintered specimens after the thermal shock test between 30oC and 1300oC for 20,000 cycles was maintained with the original laboratory strength of 500MPa by low thermal expansion coefficient, 2.9 × 10-6/oC, and high thermal conductivity, 28 W/m⋅oC.

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: As an important component of a fuel cell, the bipolar plate comprises a large proportion in the fuel cell's volume, weight and price. The bipolar plate is the most widely used; however, graphite bipolar plate is large in volume, brittle and therefore easily broken during assembling. In addition, due to its poor machinability, production costs a lot, unless mass production. Compared with the graphite bipolar plate, the metal bipolar plate has good machinability, high electric conductivity and strong mechanical strength; however, it corrodes easily and has a high contact resistance, so in order to prevent corrosion and reduce the contact resistance, the basic metal needs to be processed by use of electro polishing and coating. The water which is produced by electrochemical reactions in the fuel cell must be discharged smoothly. In this study, in order to prevent corrosion the processes of electro polishing and CrN coating were used. According to the presence or absence of these processes, the contact angles can be measured and different metal bipolar plates can be made, these plates can be used for comparing and analyzing the performance of the fuel cell.