(Invited) Development of Novel Coatings on Stainless Steel based Bipolar Plates for Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Water Electrolyzer Application
Authors: Singh Aditya , Shahgaldi Samaneh 
Published: December 2024

Hydrogen is one of the most efficient energy carriers and can be produced by different methods. Among all the production methods, the proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer (PEMWE) is considered as the most promising technique to produce highly pure hydrogen from renewable energy sources with pure oxygen as by-products with no carbon emissions. The PEMWE technology has reached the early stages of commercial deployment while the mass production is tied to cost reduction. A PEMWE single cell comprises a membrane electrode assembly which considered as a core component where the electrochemical reactions take places in three phase boundaries. It also includes a titanium based porous transport layer (PTL) in anode side and carbon-based gas diffusion layer (GDL) in cathode side for the transportation of water and gas into and out of the cell. Additionally, bipolar plates (BPPs) with grooves provide mechanical support for the cell and distribute the water inside the cell and remove generated gases to the outlet trough flow field distribution channels. PTLs and BPPs, which are metallic components, are designed to endure the corrosive conditions present in the electrolyzer and they both needs protective coatings to stand at high voltage (<2 V), acidic media, temperature (60–80 °C) and oxygen saturated environment (anode).

In this research, a modified electroplating process is used to deposit gold thin film as a protective film on both stainless steel (SS) and titanium based BPPs and PTLs, respectively. The electroplating of gold is a mature technology and easy to implement for large scale coating. This process will be impacted by many factors, such as the ingredient of plating solution, arrangement of electrodes, current distribution, and operating parameters. In addition, pre-treating the surface plays an important role to develop the durable thin films with proper adhesion. The gold striking underlayer on the SS substrate passivated the surface oxides and facilitated a dense electroplated chromium layer. Furthermore, a uniform gold protective layer was electroplated on the chromium coated substrate to achieve a promising anti-corrosive property. To evaluate the impact of pre-treatment and the anti-corrosion properties of the developed coating, different physical and electrochemical characterization techniques are conducted. As a result, The Au/Cr/Au coating on the SS substrate showed corrosion current density of 0.84 µA/cm2 and lower degradation as compared to without gold striking underlayer.

The surface morphology and the crystallinity and phase analysis are investigated by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD), respectively. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is used to study the surface properties and the bonds between the elements. The contact resistance also is studied under different pressures. In addition, traditional lab-scale durability analysis, using stagnant liquid electrolyte and three-electrode cell setups, might not provide such a precise information for PEM water electrolyzer. The three-electrode setup does not include crucial parameters relating to real cell-operating conditions or contributions to the PTL by other key cell components such as the membrane, catalyst layer, ionomer, and bipolar plates. Flow electrochemical setup is developed in our lab and is used to run the accelerate stress test to check the durability of the coated samples. Potentiodynamic, chronoamperometry and impedance also used to evaluate the samples.

Figure 1. (a) Schematic of gold electroplating on the SS substrate, (b) SEM image and EDX analysis of Au/Cr/Au coating.

We would like to acknowledge the support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canada Research Chair and Mitacs Accelerate program and Intlvac Thin Film for their constant support.

Figure 1