Evaluation of the corrosion resistance of Ni–Co–B coatings in simulated PEMFC environment

The corrosion resistance behavior of Ni–Co–B coated carbon steel, Al 6061 alloy and 304 stainless steel was evaluated in simulated proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) environment. The phase structure of the NiCoB based alloy was determined by Rietveld analysis. The PEMFC environment was constituted of 0.5 M H2SO4 at 60 °C and the evaluation techniques employed included potentiodynamic polarization, linear polarization resistance, open circuit potential measurements and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The results showed that in all cases the corrosion resistance of the Ni–Co–B coating was higher than that of the uncoated alloys; about two orders of magnitude with respect to carbon steel and an order of magnitude compared to 304 stainless steel. Except for the uncoated 304 type stainless steel, the polarization curves for the coated specimens did not exhibit a passive region but only anodic dissolution. The corrosion potential value, Ecorr, was always nobler for the coated samples than for the uncoated specimens. This was true for the stainless steel in the passive region, but in the active state for the carbon steel and Al 6061 alloy. The corrosion of the underlying alloy occurred due to filtering of the solution through coating defects like microcracks, pinholes, etc. During the filtering process the Ecorr value of the coating decreased slowly until it reached a steady state value, close to the Ecorr value of the underlying alloy.