Golareh Jalilvand - MSc Student, Department of Material Science and Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
Mohammad-Ali Faghihi Sani - Associate Professor, Department of Material Science and Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

The interconnect is a critical stack component of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), which provides electrical connection between adjacent cells, physically separates the oxidant and fuel gases and distributes the gases to electrodes. In order to reduce the rate of oxide scale growth and prevent the chromium volatilization to the cathode side, coating with a conductive ceramic layer is an effective way. In this paper, the NiCo2O4 spinel coating is applied on the surfaces of SUS 430 ferritic stainless steel by the sol– gel process using proportional amounts of nickel nitrate hexahydrate (Ni(NO3)2·6H2O), cobalt nitratehexahydrate (Co(NO3)2·6H2O), citric acid monohydrate and Triton as surfactant. pH, concentration of the solution and the coating rate were the studied effective parameters. The crystal structure of all phases and cross-section as well as surface morphology of the as-coated samples were characterized by X-ray diffractometer (XRD) and a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with an energy dissipation spectroscopy (EDS) attachment. The results showed that by using a 0.2M solution, pH of 3 and a coating rate of 3cm/min, the most dense and uniform coating with the minimum thickness was achieved. The measured electrical properties indicate that the applied coating considerably improved due to inhibited growth of resistive Cr2O3 and the formation of conductive spinel phases in the oxide scale

Solid Oxide Fuel Cell, Interconnect, Sol-gel dip coating, Spinel nanostructured coating