Nano-Cr2N dominated films with high conductivity and strong corrosion resistance for Ti bipolar plates

Films for bipolar plates deposited from PVD are always restricted by narrow parameters' widow, which restrict the robust quality of high conductivity and anticorrosion due to the fluctuation of deposition plasma naturally. In this study, CrN films with high conductivity and strong corrosion resistance was deposited on Ti plates by high power impulse magnetron sputtering in wider Ar/N2 ratios. The results show that the CrN film prepared by this method effectively inhibits the columnar structure and forms a dense structure of amorphous wrapped nano Cr2N clusters, providing good protection for Ti plate. Meanwhile, First-principal calculations shown Cr2N has stronger metallicity than CrN, resulting in lower ICR. This work has opened up a new way for the large-scale preparation of metal bipolar plate films.(c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).