Active screen plasma surface co-alloying treatments of 316 stainless steel with nitrogen and silver for fuel cell bipolar plates

Abstract

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Surface modification of tool steel by cathodic cage TiN deposition

“…This system is widely used for deposition of several coatings on steels such as: silver alloying by Lin et al [23] as well as Dong et al [24], niobium alloying by Lin et al [25], copper alloying by Dong et al [26] and aluminium alloying by Naeem et al [27]. Daudt et al [28,29] deposited the TiN coating on a glass substrate and investigated the effect of cage configuration on surface microstructure.…”

Nitrogen mass transfer and surface layer formation during the active screen plasma nitriding of austenitic stainless steels

“…Active screen plasma nitriding (ASPN) technology has received considerable studies since it was invented by J. Geoges in the early 2000s. [1] This novel surface plasma technology offers many advantages over the conventional direct current plasma method, such as better surface quality and layer uniformity [2], and has been applied in the field of medical devices [3][4][5], orthopaedic devices [6][7][8] and hydrogen fuel cells [9][10][11][12][13][14].…”

Performance of SS304 Modified by Silver Micro/Nano-Dendrite Coating with Hot-Water Super-Repellency in Simulated PEMFC Cathode Environment

“…At room temperature, the resistivity of Ag is only 1.59 × 10 −8 Ω·m [ 33 ], and the standard electrode potential Ag ⇌ Ag + is 0.799 V (vs. SHE) [ 34 ]. A large body of research shows that the preparation of Ag coating on stainless-steel bipolar plates can markedly ameliorate the conductivity [ 35 , 36 ] and corrosion resistance [ 35 , 36 , 37 ]. For instance, Feng et al [ 35 ] prepared the silver-implanted SS316L, of which the interfacial contact resistance (ICR ≈ 150 mΩ cm 2 ) under the compression pressure of 150 N/cm 2 is much lower than that (ICR ≈ 350 mΩ cm 2 ) of the bare SS316L.…”

“…For instance, Feng et al [ 35 ] prepared the silver-implanted SS316L, of which the interfacial contact resistance (ICR ≈ 150 mΩ cm 2 ) under the compression pressure of 150 N/cm 2 is much lower than that (ICR ≈ 350 mΩ cm 2 ) of the bare SS316L. Lin et al [ 36 ] investigated the nitrogen and silver co-alloyed SS316L surface by active screen plasma nitriding technology, and the results showed that the corrosion resistance (i.e., decreased corrosion current density from 0.114 to 0.097 mA/cm 2 and increased corrosion potential from −460 to −417 mV in 0.5 M H 2 SO 4 + 2 ppm HF) and conductivity (the ICR is around 20 mΩ cm 2 at 140 N/cm 2 ) of the modified surface were all improved remarkably. Huang et al [ 37 ] developed the electroless silver-coated SS304 bipolar plates, which exhibit corrosion potential as high as 186.38 mV and corrosion current density as low as 5.668 nA/cm 2 in 0.5 M H 2 SO 4 .…”