A Ti3C2Tx-carbon black-acrylic epoxy coating for 304SS bipolar plates with enhanced corrosion resistant and conductivity

A conducting and anticorrosive coating is crucial for the application of metal bipolar plates (BP) in proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). In this work, a Ti 3 C 2 T x (T)-carbon black (C)-acrylic epoxy (AE) coating is prepared on 304 stainless steel (SS) with enhanced corrosion resistance and conductivity. The corrosion resistance of the T-C-AE coating is investigated in a 0.5 M H 2 SO 4 solution as compared to the AE, T, and T-AE coatings. The T-C-AE coated 304SS exhibits the strongest corrosion resistance with the most positive corrosion potential and the lowest corrosion current density of 0.00673 μA cm −2 in all the samples, while retaining intact and compact surface morphology with the lowest metal ion dissolution even after immersed for 720 h. The addition of Ti 3 C 2 T x and carbon black into the AE matrix greatly decreases interfacial contact resistance (ICR), and the T-C-AE coating achieves a low ICR of 15.5 mΩ cm −2 under 140 N cm −2 compaction force . The excellent anticorrosion performance is mainly attributed to the physical barrier and the cathodic protection provided by the stacked Ti 3 C 2 T x (MXene) nanosheets in the T-C-AE coating. This eco-friendly, conducting, and anticorrosive T-C-AE coating has a good application prospect on SS BP of PEMFC.