Copper Manganese Spinel Coating on a Ferritic Stainless Steel for SOFC Application

Nowadays, Because of daily reduction of fossil fuels and environmental problems caused by using them, Fuel Cells attracted a major attention as clean and efficient way of generating electrical power. Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) have many advantages to other fuel cell types. High working temperature of SOFCs caused serious challenges including high oxidation rate of interconnects, Spallation and cracks in oxide scale due to mismatch of Thermal Expansion Coefficient (TEC), Cathodic Poisoning and high Area Specific Resistance (ASR) of oxide scale. Manganese containing coatings have overcome these challenges successfully, having unique properties. The purpose of this project is, coating AISI-430 ferritic stainless steel with Cu-Mn Spinel for using as SOFCs interconnects. The coating was done, using Electrophoretic codeposition of CuO and MnO2 with subsequential oxidating thermal treatment for spinel synthesis. Thermal treatment for spinel synthesis was done in 40 hours at 750°C. Phase analysis and microscopic evaluation of coatings showed that Cu-Mn spinel synthesis was done successfully.