Corrosion behaviors of multilayer C/Cr/SS bipolar plates for proton exchange membrane fuel cells under dynamic potential polarization based on New European Driving Cycle

The New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) induces remarkable degradation of proton exchange membrane fuel cells. The long-term cyclic dynamic potential polarizations based on NEDC with four different Epeak are inves-tigated on the multilayer C/Cr coated SS316L (C/Cr/SS) bipolar plates. C/Cr/SS achieves superior small ICRs and low corrosion rate with Epeak up to 1.12 V, demonstrating great potential for commercial applications. However, mild local corrosion occurs at 1.16 V and accelerates at 1.22 V, resulted by the dissolution initiated at the heterogeneous interface. The present work offers new insights into NEDC-based potential polarization induced degradation on C/Cr/SS.