Ceramic MaxPhase™

High cost of bi-polar plates (BPP) used to be an unbreakable barrier for reaching the volume market for fuel cells. The surface protection Ceramic MaxPhase™ drastically changes the picture, being significantly cheaper than gold protection of metal BPP. Ceramic MaxPhase™ provides a technical solution with potential to meet the fuel cell cost target of the US Department of Energy.

Stainless steel BPP with Ceramic MaxPhase™ are qualified for low-temperature PEMFC and DMFC, showing stack performance equivalent to gold plated BPP.Impact Coatings provides coating services of Ceramic MaxPhase™ for metal BPP as well as turn-key PVD (physical vapor deposition) production equipment.

Ceramic MaxPhase™ for fuel cells – breaks through the golden barrier to the volume market

Ceramic MaxPhase™ for fuel cells

Impact Coatings AB • Westmansgatan 29, SE-582 16 Linköping, Sweden • Phone: +46 (0) 13-35 99 50info@impactcoatings.se • www.impactcoatings.se

Impact Coatings provides fast turn-around coating service of Ceramic MaxPhase™ on metal BPP out of our facility in Sweden. This allows customers to perform tests and production ramp-ups. Contact us for a quote!

For volume production we supply a turn-key solution based on the InlineCoater™ 500 PVD equipment, including access to Impact Coatings’ process knowhow and services.

Impact Coatings has over a decade of experience from serv-ing customers world-wide with PVD production solutions for automomotive, mobile phone, and other industries. PVD is a well-established coating technology in large industries. It is a dry and clean surface treatment method without the environ-mental and health risks coupled with galvanic wet plating.

Qualified for PEMFC and DMFCThe Ceramic MaxPhase™ coating was developed by Impact

Coatings and qualified in cooperation with leading fuel cell

manufacturers. Formed BPP of stainless steel (ASTM 316L)

are coated with Ceramic MaxPhase™, creating an electri-

cally conductive and corrosion resistant surface.

Qualification of Ceramic MaxPhase™ coated BPP has

included ex-situ testing for corrosion and electrical

performance as well as long-time in-situ testing in fuel

cell stacks. Long-time testing was performed both for

low-temperature PEMCF (2000 hours) and for DMFC (2500

hours), showing performance equivalent to gold plated BPP.Long-time stack testing using Ceramic MaxPhase™ coated BPP

was performed in low-temperature PEMFC from PowerCell. The

graph shows stable cell operation over the 2000 hours tested.

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InlineCoater™ 500

Coating service

Turn-key PVD production solution