Pulsed Laser Deposition of Platinum Nanoparticles as a Catalyst for High-Performance PEM Fuel Cells

Abstract

Abstract:The catalyst layers for polymer-electrolyte-membrane (PEM) fuel cells were fabricated by deposition of platinum directly onto the gas diffusion layer using pulsed laser deposition (PLD). This technique reduced the number of steps required to synthesize the catalyst layers and the amount of Pt loading required. PEM fuel cells with various Pt loadings for the cathode were investigated. With a cathode Pt loading of 100 µg·cm −2 , the current density of a single cell reached 1205 mA·cm −2 at 0.6 V, which was close to that of a single cell using an E-TEK (trademark) Pt/C electrode with a cathode Pt loading of 400 µg·cm −2 . Furthermore, for a PEM fuel cell with both electrodes prepared by PLD and a total anode and cathode Pt loading of 117 µg·cm −2 , the overall Pt mass-specific power density at 0.6 V reached 7.43 kW·g −1 , which was five times that of a fuel cell with E-TEK Pt/C electrodes. The high mass-specific power density was due to that a very thin nanoporous Pt layer was deposited directly onto the gas diffusion layer, which made good contact with the Nafion membrane and thus resulted in a low-resistance membrane electrode assembly.

Enhanced oxygen reduction activity of size-selected platinum subnanocluster catalysts: Ptn (n = 3–9)

“…Among the various synthetic routes, the dry fabrication of nanomaterials is a clean and promising method to reduce the complexity because the synthetic procedures can be performed under high vacuum conditions without solvent and with negligible chemical reagents. 3,[37][38][39][40][41][42][43] Recently, we reported the superior mass-specific and surface-specific activities (SA) of Pt 6 sub-NCs for oxygen electroreduction, which were 1.7 and 2.3 times higher, respectively, than the conventional standard Pt/C catalysts with a Pt crystallite diameter of 3 nm. 44 The Pt 6 sub-NCs were prepared by a dry fabrication method using magnetron sputtering (MSP), which simplifies the synthetic procedures and generates Pt sub-NCs in a naked form.…”

Enhanced oxygen reduction activity of platinum subnanocluster catalysts through charge redistribution

“…Although the atomicity is a unique parameter for the activity in monometallic Pt NCs, size specificity is still controversial; 2,17-24 the difficulty arises from the complex nature of catalysts, e.g., non-systematic variation of structures with the size and effect of surrounding materials (supports and ligated molecules). For a systematic understanding of NC catalysis, a dry fabrication method which reduces the complexity through the entirely clean nature of the synthetic procedure carried out under high vacuum conditions, facilitates the catalysis preparation of naked NCs; 2,3,[25][26][27][28][29][30] high surface specific activity (SA) of Pt 46 NCs has been reported at high coverage. 2 Despite numerous efforts, the correlation between activity and structure has not been elucidated so far, which is crucial to establish a reliable guiding principle for NC catalysts.…”

Green and Low-Cost Membrane Electrode Assembly for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells: Effect of Double-Layer Electrodes and Gas Diffusion Layer

“…In addition, the relaxation time peak from Bode plot (Figures 5B,D) is not well clear. However, this is favorable for the cathode material in fuel cells (Qayyum et al, 2016). On the other side, for rGO sample the Nyquist semicircle at low frequency characterized by higher polarization resistance more than rGO/MIO and that is a characteristic property for anode material (Siracusano et al, 2018).…”