Low platinum loading electrospun electrodes for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

Abstract

An experimental study was performed to evaluate the utility of electrospun carbon nanofiber supports for sputtered platinum catalyst in proton exchange membrane fuel cells. The performance of the sputtered nanofiber supports was similar to that of sputtered commercial gas diffusion layers in single cell fuel cell tests. However, sputtered platinum electrodes performed significantly worse than commercial thin film electrodes due to high activation and concentration voltage losses. Cyclic voltammetry and rotating disc electrode experiments were performed in order to evaluate the influence of platinum loading and particle size on the electrochemical active area and oxygen reduction performance of the sputtered platinum. Active area per weight catalyst decreased with sputtering time, and the oxygen reduction activity slightly increases with increasing sputtering time. Both of these effects are thought to be due to increasing platinum particle size as sputtering time is increased.