H.M. Gabriel¹, I. Fernandez-Martinez², W. Dölling¹, J.-A. Santiago-Varela², A. Wennberg², J. Lu³, M.Gepperth¹, I. Haidau¹, P. Forster^1
1PVT Plasma und Vakuum Technik GmbH, 64625 Bensheim, Germany
²N4E Nano4Energy, 28006 Madrid, Spain
³PVT China,100012 Beijing, China
In-line coating systems are ideally suited for high volume production applications over a wide range of substrate sizes and geometries. Parts are fed in on one side of the coating plant, run through the various process chambers and are finally released to atmosphere at the other end of the coating system.
PVT has designed and developed different in-line coating systems that are ideally suited for Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) coating of bipolar plates for fuel stacks and electrolyzers in high volume. In-line coating systems are characterized by the ability to perform each step of the coating process in its own dedicated vacuum chamber. Process chambers are isolated from each other by large area transfer valves.
Multi-layer film stacks are deposited in a highly productive process cycle. PVT will present its newest in-line system which is extremely productive and versatile using magnetron sputtering and HiPIMS.
PVT is offering coating service with this in-line system for development and pilot production applications. Properties of the different coatings deposited by HiPIMS and dual magnetron sputtering are presented such as ICR – values and corrosion data.