Performance of the gold-plated titanium bipolar plates for the light weight PEM fuel cells

In this present work, we are attempting to develop a light weight and corrosion resistant bipolar plate for the proton exchange membrane fuel cell. A titanium bipolar plate substrate has been chosen as the base metal due to its low cost, ease of manufacture into stampable bipolar plates, and its light weight. Our approach to obtain a smaller and lighter weight single fuel cell is to coat titanium with a corrosion resistant coating. Gold (Au) was investigated. The cell performance of the gold-plated bipolar plates is close to and even better than the PEM fuel cells with graphite and pure titanium bipolar plates. Gold-plated titanium bipolar plates can be employed to produce fuel cells with light weight, low coating cost and low contact resistance, ideal for portable applications.