Ford Global Technolgoies, LLC

Mark Stephen Ricketts

Jun Yang

Shinichi Hirano

Kerrie Kathleen Gath

Chunchuan Xu

Daniel Edward Wilkosz

Valerie Ann Nelson

The present disclosure includes fuel cell bipolar plates and methods of forming a radical scavenging coating on a bipolar plate. The bipolar plates may include a steel substrate, a middle layer contacting the steel substrate and including a bulk material and a radical scavenging material, and a conductive layer contacting the middle layer. The radical scavenging material may include cerium, such as metallic cerium or a cerium oxide. The conductive layer may include a conductive carbon, such as a diamond-like carbon or coating (DLC). The radical scavenging material may comprise 0.1 wt % to 30 wt % of the middle layer. The middle layer may be deposited using PVD, and the radical scavenging material may be doped into the middle layer, for example, by co-sputtering it with the bulk material of the middle layer.

Corrosion resistant metal bipolar plate for a PEMFC including a radical scavenger

A fuel cell assembly includes a pair of corrugated bipolar plates. Each of the plates is defined by peak portions and sidewalls connecting the peak portions. The plates are fitted and nested within each other such that the sidewalls are in direct contact. Some of the sidewalls include a stepped shoulder portion such that each of the some of the sidewalls and the peak portions adjacent thereto form a stair-step profile and define a flow channel having a depth greater than a width.

Proton exchange membrane fuel cell with stepped channel bipolar plate

The present disclosure includes a fuel cell bipolar plate including a coating and methods for forming the coating. The bipolar plate may include a steel substrate and a coating contacting the steel substrate. The coating may include a plurality of alternating oxide-forming layers and elution resistant layers. The oxide-forming layers may include pure titanium, doped titanium, or a titanium alloy (e.g. doped/alloyed with niobium, zirconium, vanadium, silver, tantalum, yttrium, scandium, or nitrogen) and the elution resistant layers may include a noble metal or tantalum (e.g., gold, iridium, ruthenium, or tantalum). There may be 2-20 layers each of the oxide-forming layers and the elution resistant layers. The coating may prevent elution of iron ions from the steel substrate, for example, by forming oxide plugs in defects or pinholes in the oxide forming and/or elution resistant layers. The coating may also reduce the total usage of precious metals, such as gold.

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Windsor, CA, United States of America

Mark Stephen Ricketts