Coated stainless steel 441 as interconnect material for solid oxide fuel cells: Evolution of electrical properties

AISI 441 coated with a double layer coating of 10 nm cerium (inner layer) and 630 nm cobalt was investigated and in addition the uncoated material was exposed for comparison. The main purpose of this investigation was the development of a suitable ASR characterization method. The material was exposed to a simulated cathode atmosphere of air with 3% water at 850 °C and the samples were exposed for up to 1500 h. We compared two methods of ASR measurements, an in-situ method where samples were measured with platinum electrodes for longer exposure times and an ex-situ method where pre-oxidized samples were measured for only very short measurement times. It was found that the ASR of ex-situ characterized samples could be linked to the mass gain and the electrical properties could be linked to the evolving microstructure during the different stages of exposure. Both the degradation of the electric performance and the oxygen uptake (mass gain) followed similar trends. After about 1500 h of exposure an ASR value of about 15 mΩcm2 was reached. The in-situ measured samples suffered from severe corrosion attack during measurement. After only 500 h of exposure already a value of 35 mΩcm2 was obtained.