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Towards Replacing Titanium with Copper in the Bipolar Plates for Proton Exchange Membrane Water Electrolysis

  • For proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) to become competitive, the cost of stack components, such as bipolar plates (BPP), needs to be reduced. This can be achieved by using coated low-cost materials, such as copper as alternative to titanium. Herein we report on highly corrosion-resistant copper BPP coated with niobium. All investigated samples showed excellent corrosion resistance properties, with corrosion currents lower than 0.1 µA cm−2 in a simulated PEM electrolyzer environment at two different pH values. The physico-chemical properties of the Nb coatings are thoroughly characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). A 30 µm thick Nb coating fully protects the Cu against corrosion due to the formation of a passive oxide layer on its surface, predominantly composed of Nb2O5. The thickness of the passive oxide layer determined by both EIS and XPS is in the range of 10 nm. The results reported here demonstrate the effectiveness of Nb for protecting Cu against corrosion, opening the possibility to use it for the manufacturing of BPP for PEMWE. The latter was confirmed by its successful implementation in a single cell PEMWE based on hydraulic compression technology.

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Author:Andrea Kellenberger, Nicolae Vaszilcsin, Delia Duca, Mircea Laurentiu Dan, Narcis Duteanu, Svenja Stiber, Tobias Morawietz, Indro Biswas, Syed Asif Ansar, Pawel Gazdzicki, Florian Josef Wirkert, Jeffrey Roth, Ulrich Rost, Michael Brodmann, Aldo Saul Gago, Kaspar Andreas Friedrich
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15051628
Parent Title (English):Materials 2022, 15(5), 1628
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2022/02/22
Date of first Publication:2022/02/20
Publishing Institution:Westfälische Hochschule Gelsenkirchen Bocholt Recklinghausen
Release Date:2024/09/02
Tag:PEMWE; bipolar plate; coatings; corrosion resistance; water electrolysis
Note:
This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Research on Energy Storage Materials: Properties and Applications.
Departments / faculties:Institute / Westfälisches Energieinstitut
Licence (German):License LogoEs gilt das Urheberrechtsgesetz

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