An Investigation on the Corrosion and Electrical Behavior of Co-coated Crofer 22 APU Bipolar Plates for PEMFCs

Mohsenifar, Farhad; Ebrahimifar, Hadi; Irannejad, Ahmad

doi:10.22075/ppam.2026.40824.1213

An Investigation on the Corrosion and Electrical Behavior of Co-coated Crofer 22 APU Bipolar Plates for PEMFCs

Articles in Press

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Farhad Mohsenifar ¹

Hadi Ebrahimifar ²

Ahmad Irannejad ³

¹ Mechanical Engineering Department, Higher Education Complex of Bam, Bam, 76615-314, Iran

² Department of Materials Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Graduate University of Advanced Technology, Kerman, 76315-117, Iran

³ Department of Materials Engineering and Metallurgy, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, 76169-133, Iran

10.22075/ppam.2026.40824.1213

Abstract

In this study, a cobalt coating was deposited onto stainless steel bipolar plates used in proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) via the direct current electrodeposition technique. The coating’s surface morphology and phase composition were assessed using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) coupled with energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), respectively. The corrosion behaviour of both coated and uncoated samples was evaluated by potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) in simulated cathodic and anodic environments of the PEMFC. The chemical states of the samples’ surface before and after corrosion were analyzed using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). To assess changes in electrical performance, the interfacial contact resistance (ICR) of each sample was determined before and after corrosion. The potentiodynamic polarization results demonstrated that the application of the cobalt coating on the steel substrate led to a reduction in the corrosion current density by approximately 31 and 25 times in the simulated cathodic and anodic environments, respectively. XPS analysis confirmed the formation of cobalt oxide on the coated steel surface after corrosion, while the corrosion layer on the bare steel consisted of iron and chromium sulfides and hydroxides. The results revealed that under a clamping force of 1.4 MPa, the coated specimen exhibited a lower ICR (2.42 mΩ cm²) compared to the bare sample (30.49 mΩ cm²). Moreover, an increase in ICR values was observed for both specimens after the potentiodynamic polarization test.

Keywords

Electrodeposition

Bipolar plates

Corrosion

Interfacial contact resistance

Subjects

Electrochemically Active Materials for Fuel Cells

© 2026 The Author(s). Progress in Physics of Applied Materials published by Semnan University Press. This is an open access article under the CC-BY 4.0 license. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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