Abstract
Ferritic stainless steel is a good candidate material for bipolar plate, however stainless steel is limited to use as a bipolar plate due to its high ICR. In order to reduce ICR value, chemical treatment is performed by immersion in the acidic and alkali solutions. Immersion in the HCl solution makes the specimen surface rougher because of metal dissolution. The rough surface decreases the ICR value since the real contact area between the specimen surface and carbon paper increases. Immersion in the NaOH solution do not result any change in the surface topology. However, the ICR value decreases because the passive film immersed in NaOH solution enriches in Cr oxy-hydroxide with the bound water acting as a donor-type impurity.