High nitrogen stainless steel as bipolar plates for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

Effect of grain refinement and electrochemical nitridation on corrosion resistance of the 316L stainless steel for bipolar plates in PEMFCs environment

“…Moreover, recent studies also showed high nitrogen stainless steels were very attractive to be used as bipolar plates for PEMFCs which required high corrosion resistance for a long term operation [7e9]. It was believed that the corrosion resistance Cr-oxides passive layer of the high nitrogen stainless steel obtained by the presence of nitrogen incorporated into the stainless steel could contribute to the maintenance of the higher cell voltage during the extensive cell operation [7]. The corrosion resistance of the 23Cre1N stainless steel was better than that of 22Cr stainless steel in the simulated cathodic environment, which was attributed to rich chromium oxides in the outer layer of the passive film [8].…”

Reviewing Metallic PEMFC Bipolar Plates

“…Moreover, 304/304L SS showed higher contact resistance than 316/316L SS [33,37,44,45,[56][57][58], which could be related to the lower alloying content [33]. For these reasons, except use in some small-scale demonstration fuel cells [61] or for cladding with another functional layer [62], 304/304L SS has normally acted as a substrate for coating deposition [44,45,[55][56][57][58][59][63][64][65] In addition, some high N-bearing SSs have been evaluated for bipolar plate application [66][67][68] and showed promising results both in simulated PEMFC environments and in stack testing. High N-bearing SS is more economical compared with the conventional SSs.…”

Evaluation of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy under different operation conditions and corrosion

“…Cho et al [37] reported that mechanical strength and cost of the carbon composite plates are necessary to be improved. Thus, stainless steels have attracted wide attention to substitute the Page 4 of 34 A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t 4 carbonaceous bipolar plates [38][39][40][41][42][43][44]. However, stainless steels could be readily corroded in the PEMFC environment because the SO 4 2− and F − anions released from the membrane polymer in the course of cell operation, leading to low pH.…”