Corrosion protection of CrN/TiN multi-coating for bipolar plate of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell

Abstract The electrochemical corrosion cells will be generated from the possible pinholes of the promising CrN and TiN coatings in a PEMFC environment. To prevent the elution of possible pinholes, CrN/TiN multi-coatings on SS have been considered. This study examined the electrochemical behavior of three CrN/TiN coatings on 316L stainless steel deposited at different CrN/TiN thickness ratios by rf-magnetron sputtering as potential bipolar plate materials. Potentiodynamic tests of CrN/TiN-coated 316L stainless steel carried out in a 1 M H2SO4 + 2 ppm HF solution at 70 °C revealed a significantly lower corrosion current density than that of uncoated 316L SS, as well as a decrease in the corrosion current density with decreasing inner-layer CrN thickness. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy also showed that the CrN/TiN-coated 316L SS sample had higher charge transfer resistance than the uncoated 316L SS sample, which increased with decreasing inner-layer CrN thickness. This was attributed to the crystalline-refined CrN/TiN(200).