dc.description.abstract | Abstract
This study uses metal porous materials as the flow field for high-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells (HT-PEMFCs). Metal porous materials exhibit characteristics such as high porosity, light weight, and excellent conductivity, which make them advantageous compared to traditional flow channels, as they can eliminate shielding effect. During the operation of HT-PEMFCs, the internal environment is acidic, which can corrode the metal flow channels and thereby affect the durability of the fuel cells. To prevent corrosion of metal porous materials by leakage phosphoric acid solutions from proton exchange membrane, it is necessary to enhance the corrosion resistance, conductivity, and hydrophobicity of the porous metal materials through surface coating treatments.
In this study, we used graphene, titanium nitride, zirconium nitride, and chromium nitride as anti-corrosion coatings. We analyzed the properties of these materials through surface morphology observation, contact angle measurements, and corrosion tests, and incorporated them into single cells to analyze their performance.
The corrosion polarization results show that the corrosion resistance of the graphene coating in a simulated HT-PEMFC environment is superior to other coatings. The corrosion current of the graphene-coated porous material is significantly reduced by approximately 58% compared to the pristine porous material and reduced by approximately 21% compared to the commonly used titanium nitride coating. Analysis of the microstructure before and after corrosion testing reveals that the graphene coating exhibits better corrosion resistance stability. In a HT-PEMFC single cell assembled with a graphene-coated nickel porous material, the fuel cell demonstrated long-term durability at a constant current of 400 mA/cm2 at 180 °C. The voltage decay rate of the fuel cell with the graphene coating was 48.8% less than that of the pristine metal porous material. | en_US |