Deposition of a coating on an interconnect for solid oxide cell stacks
A method for coating an interconnect for a solid oxide cell (SOC) stack comprises providing an interconnect substrate comprising Cr and Fe, coating the interconnect substrate with a first metallic layer by electrodeposition, coating the resulting structure with a second layer of metallic cobalt by electrodeposition and coating the resulting structure with a layer of metallic copper by ion-exchange plating. This way, a metallic copper-cobalt coating is formed on the interconnect.
1. A method for coating an interconnect for a solid oxide cell (SOC) stack, said method comprising:
providing an interconnect substrate comprising Cr and Fe,
coating the interconnect substrate with a first metallic layer by electrodeposition,
coating a second layer of metallic cobalt over the first metallic layer by electrodeposition, and
coating a layer of metallic copper over the second layer of metallic cobalt by ion-exchange plating,
thereby forming a metallic copper-cobalt coating on the interconnect.
2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the electrodeposition of the first metallic layer and the second metallic Co layer comprises electroplating.
3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the first metallic layer is either cobalt or nickel.
4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the thickness of the first metallic layer is between 10 and 2000 nm.
5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the thickness of the second metallic Co layer is between 0.5 and 10 μm.
6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein a different electrolyte is used for the electrodeposition of the first metallic layer and for the electrodeposition of the second metallic Co layer.
7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the ion-exchange plating is carried out in an acidic copper electrolyte.
8. The method according to claim 7 , wherein the acidic copper electrolyte comprises 160-230 g/liter CuSO 4 .5H 2 O, 40-100 g/liter H 2 SO 4 , optionally with minor addition of sodium chloride in the range of 30-150 mg/liter.
9. The method according to claim 1 , where the ion-exchange plating is self-limiting.
10. The method according to claim 9 , where the thickness of the metallic copper layer coated over the second layer of metallic cobalt is between 10 and 1000 nm.