Corrosion studies of a copper-beryllium alloy in a simulated polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell environment

Bipolar plates play an important role in the performance, and cost of fuel cell. The properties of copper-beryllium alloy were studied in simulated fuel cell environment. Corrosion studies of the alloy were carried out by using Tafel extrapolation, and potentiodynamic polarization plots at various temperatures. The conditions selected were 0.5 M H2SO4 with varying pH in the range of 3-5 and 5% (v/v) HCl + 5% (v/v) Na2SO4 with the bubbling of oxygen, and argon. The corrosion rate for the alloy was found to be 0.05, and 0.28 μm year−1 at 25 and 70 °C, respectively. A similar range of corrosion rates was reported in literature for other copper alloys. Due to their good corrosion resistance and high conductivity the alloy can be considered as a candidate material for bipolar plates. Use of copper alloy in bipolar plate will reduce the contact resistance in cell stack due to their high conductivity.