ABSTRACT
Hydrogen energy is one of the promising alternatives to fossil fuels in energy applications. Hydrogen can
be produced either by hydrocarbon reformation or by water electrolysis. For on-site hydrogen generation,
electrolysis is the best option and has the potential to produce green hydrogen using renewable energy
sources. Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) electrolyzers can be operated at higher current densities with
better voltage efficiency under highly pressurized conditions compared to the alkaline electrolyzers. The
flow field plates (bipolar plates) are one of the important components to the stack, that provides mechanical
stability, supplies reactants, and removes product gases and provides electrical conductivity among the
cells. Titanium is conventionally used as flow field plates because of good corrosion resistance and high
mechanical strength, but it is prone to oxidation on the anode side and hydrogen embrittlement on the
cathode side. Hence precious metal coating preferred to prevent the aforementioned problem. However, it
leads to cost enhancement of the components in the PEM based system.
Hence, an attempt has been made to develop efficient, cost-effective, durable conductive coatings on Ti
surface and testing its application in PEM electrolyzer environment will be studied. As a first attempt, with
the objective of reducing precious metal content on the flowfield plate, the patterned way of coating of
platinum on Ti-6Al-4V and tested its performance in PEM water electrolyzer environment. The present
work shows reasonable performance of the above approach and its testing in real PEM water electrolyzer
cell is in progress. In addition to the above approach development of metal nitride coating on Ti-6Al-4V
will also be studied.
The overall studies to be carried out in this program will explore the sustainability of alternative coatings
to precious-metal-based coatings on flowfield plates for PEM electrolyzers for hydrogen production.