Corrosion behavior of high temperature fuel cells: issues for materials selection

The corrosion of alloy components in fuel cell is recurring issue and currently it has been leading to low performances of fuel cell and failures. This issue is more prominent in high temperature systems such as molten carbonate and solid oxide fuel cell which operate above 600 °C. The cathode side and anode side corrosion issues have been addressed by many groups but components like current collectors have not. In this framework materials selection is a key issue. Comparing different experiments it can be concluded that the choice of stainless steel (SS) is good choice. In particular, SS316L is good choice but long term test show high degradation of the components. This degradation is mainly due to migration (diffusion) of elements in oxide layer and in base material. Therefore, further studies are needed in order to deeply analyze such behavior. It will allow to better alloy compositions aimed to mitigate degradation and to design alloys showing stable performance of fuel cell.