Development of electrically conductive DLC coated stainless steel separators for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell

Polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) as one of generation devices of electrical power is rapidly expanding the market as clean energy instead of petroleum and atomic energy. Residential fuel cell goes into quantity production and introduction of fuel cell for use in automobiles starts in the year 2015 in Japan. Critical subject for making fuel cell expand is how to reduce cost of fuel cell. In this paper we describe about separator plate which domains large ratio of cost in fuel cell stack. In present time, carbon is used in material of residential fuel cell separator. Metal separators are developed in fuel cell for use in automobiles because of need of mechanical strength at first. In order to make fuel cell expand in market, further cost reduction is required. But the metal separator has problem that by using metal separator contact resistance occurred by metal corrosion increases and catalyst layer and membrane degrade. In recent time we found out to protect from corrosion and dissolution of metals by coating the film of porous free conductive DLC with plasma ion implantation and deposition technology that we have developed. Film of electrically conductive DLC was formed with high speed of 13 μm/hr by ICP plasma, and coating cost breakout was performed.