Application of Atomic Layer Deposition of Platinum to Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Abstract

In this study, atomic layer deposition (ALD) was used to deposit Pt thin films as an electrode/catalyst layer for solid oxide fuel cells. I−V measurements were performed to determine the dependence of the fuel cell performance on the Pt film thickness at different operating temperatures. The measured fuel cell performance revealed that comparable peak power densities were achieved for ALD-deposited Pt anodes with only one-fifth of the platinum loading relative to dc-sputtered Pt anodes. The Pt films fabricated by dc sputtering and ALD had different microstructure, which accounted for the difference in their performance as a fuel cell anode. In addition to the continuous electrocatalyst layer, a micropatterned Pt structure was fabricated via area-selective ALD and used as a current collector grid/patterned catalyst for the fuel cells. An improvement of the fuel cell performance by a factor of 10 was observed using the Pt current collector grid/patterned catalyst integrated onto cathodic La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3-δ. The study suggests the potential to achieve improved performance and/or lower loadings using ALD for catalysts in fuel cells.

Highly conductive and flexible fiber for textile electronics obtained by extremely low-temperature atomic layer deposition of Pt

“…The adsorption mechanism of the Pt precursor in the ALD was investigated by density functional theory calculations (Figure 1g). The reactions of the precursor with the silanol moiety of the hydroxylated silica surface, resulting in the elimination of CH 4 and the adsorption of the rest were considered. 33 The activation energy for such surface reaction of HDMP (22.6 kcal mol − 1 ) was significantly lower than that of MeCpPtMe 3 (40.8 kcal mol − 1 ), which is consistent with experimental observations.…”

“…[28][29][30] The RIJCOSX approximation was applied to all calculations to improve the computational speed. 31 The hydroxylated silica surface was modeled with a Si (OH) 4 cluster. The transition-state geometries were initially guessed and then confirmed after optimization to have a single imaginary vibrational frequency along the reaction coordinate.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Based on these superior properties, ALD has been intensively studied for several applications. In particular, textile electronics using the ALD is one of the promising fields since several materials can be readily deposited at temperatures lower than 150°C by ALD, leading to the effective functionalization of thermally fragile substrates such as plastics, cellulose papers and polymeric textiles.…”

Atomic layer deposition for electrochemical energy generation and storage systems

“…Jiang et al used ALD to deposit Pt catalysts and achieved comparable peak power densities with other Pt deposition methods. 94 A self-assembled monolayer patterned Pt film formed by ALD shows more efficient current collection. 94 Moreover, the capability of ALD to synthesize catalysts consisting of composites of noble metals 56,58,59 will benefit this field.…”

“…94 A self-assembled monolayer patterned Pt film formed by ALD shows more efficient current collection. 94 Moreover, the capability of ALD to synthesize catalysts consisting of composites of noble metals 56,58,59 will benefit this field. More importantly, it would be very interesting to develop new ALD processes for synthesis of catalysts of nonprecious metals 7,8,10,61 which will have the additional benefits of lowering dependence on expensive noble metals.…”