Coating of AISI 430 ferritic stainless steel used in SOFCs in a Co-base pack mixture

Ferritic stainless steels are being considered as potential interconnect materials
for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), in part because of their low cost relative to alternatives.
These materials are, however, susceptible to degradation over time. In this study Co has
been deposited on substrate AISI 430 Ferritic stainless steel by pack cementation process.
In order to optimize the quality of the formed coating, The effective factors of pack
cementation process was investigated by changing the factors, which are salt activator
content in the pack powder (0.75-3%w.t.), deposition temperature (725-8000) and
deposition time (1.5-3h). The as-coated samples were examined with Scanning Electron
Microscopy (SEM). It was revealed that each parameter affects the coating thickness ,
coating quality and integrity.