Page 30 - PCMI Journal July 2018

Mats W. Lundberg | Sustainability Specialist | Sandvik Materials Technology | SE
Hydrogen Society of Tomorrow – Established in Sandviken Today
Figure 1 A fuel cell stack showing gas inlets and outlets. Each fuel cell (orange, blue, grey) in the stack is separated by metallic bipolar plates.
The bipolar plate needs to be conductive and corrosion resistive at the same time as water is formed in the fuel cell. Titanium, special grade stainless steels or coated stainless steels are commonly used for bipolar plates. However, as this is a repeating unit cost reductions are of interest for the customers.
Sandvik Materials Technology’s solution is the combination of stainless steel such as 304 or 316 with a protective coating that remain conductive. The process to produce the material is shown in Figure 2. The coil (left) surface is cleaned using a plasma followed by one or multiple coating steps. Then the strip coil surface is analyzed and subsequently coiled. The pre-coated solution is then shipped to the customer that shapes the bipolar plate and then assemble of the fuel cell stack (blue path). Comparing to the conventional method (orange) several steps with single plate handling in the supply chain is shortened.
Issue 131 July 2018 PCMI Journal 29