Investigation of the effect of the TaC/-C coating process on the properties of stainless steel bipolar plates

In this study, we present a series of innovative single-layer TaC/alpha-C coatings designed for integration into proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC). These coatings are fabricated on stainless steel (SS316L) substrates employing the magnetron sputtering technique. We systematically explore the influence of varying TaC content and the current applied to the tantalum target on the composition, morphology, and properties of these coatings. Notably, the investigation reveals that the coatings exhibit remarkably low values for interfacial contact resistance (ICR), amounting to 0.56 m omega cm(2), and corrosion current density, measuring at 10.7 nA cm(-2). Subsequently, Single-cell performance of PEMFC test shows that the highest peak power density of TaC/alpha-C coated SS316L bipolar plates is 1003 mW cm(-2) slightly higher than that of graphite bipolar plates, which is 948 mW cm(-2). All the results show that the novel TaC/alpha-C coating is a prospective coating for PEMFC metal bipolar plates.