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Received: December 04, 2023; Revised: December 20, 2023; Accepted: December 21, 2023
Abstract: In this work, we performed a comparative study examining two coatings on Ti Gr.1 for use in fuel cell bipolar plates. The coatings consisted of carbon black as the conductor along with acrylic polymer and Ti Sol-Gel binder as the binder. Ti Sol-Gel that had precipitated as TiO2 in areas impregnated between carbon black gaps, thereby acting as a binder for carbon black and serving as a polymer coating. Neither of the coatings peeled off during the 90o bend test to check formability. The contact resistance of the TiO2 coating was found to be lower than that of the polymer binder coating. Moreover, due to coating shrinkage (denser) that occurred during the heat treatment process, the TiO2 binder coating showed almost the same level of corrosion resistance, as measured by potentiostatic and EIS tests, despite being thinner than the polymer coating. However, both the polymer binder coating and the TiO2 binder coating had many pores and irregularities internally (around 10 ~ 100 nm) and on the surface (0.1 ~ 2 μm). We considered that these pores and irregularities contributed to the lower corrosion resistance.