TY - JOUR
T1 - Improvement of cell performance in catalyst layers with silica-coated Pt/carbon catalysts for polymer electrolyte fuel cells
AU - Park, Kayoung
AU - Ohnishi, Tomohiro
AU - Goto, Masaki
AU - So, Magnus
AU - Takenaka, Sakae
AU - Tsuge, Yoshifumi
AU - Inoue, Gen
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was partially supported by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), Japan. In addition, we would like to thank Next-Generation Fuel Cell Research Center (NEXT-FC) in Kyushu University of Japan for using their FIB-SEM equipment and Nanotechnology Platform Japan for using their zeta potential analyzer.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Carbon-supported Pt catalysts (Pt/Cs) for use of cathode catalyst layers (CLs) for PEFCs were covered with silica layers in order to improve performance. CLs with low ratio of ionomer to carbon (I/C) for Pt/C and silica-coated Pt/C were fabricated using an inkjet printing (denoted as Pt/C(IJ) and SiO2-Pt/C(IJ)) to reduce oxygen diffusion resistance. Compared to Pt/C(IJ), SiO2-Pt/C(IJ) ink maintained good dispersion and high stability under the lower I/C. The performance of SiO2-Pt/C(IJ) was significantly higher than Pt/C(IJ) at 0.6 V under all humidity conditions. In particular, the performance of SiO2-Pt/C(IJ) under low humidity conditions showed noticeable improvement regardless of current density area. From FIB-SEM, it was confirmed that the morphologies and porosities of both catalysts were the same. Thus, these results indicate that oxygen diffusion resistance, related to structure of CLs, hardly affects the performance, whereas improved performance is attributed to increased proton conductivity by silica layers containing hydrophilic groups.
AB - Carbon-supported Pt catalysts (Pt/Cs) for use of cathode catalyst layers (CLs) for PEFCs were covered with silica layers in order to improve performance. CLs with low ratio of ionomer to carbon (I/C) for Pt/C and silica-coated Pt/C were fabricated using an inkjet printing (denoted as Pt/C(IJ) and SiO2-Pt/C(IJ)) to reduce oxygen diffusion resistance. Compared to Pt/C(IJ), SiO2-Pt/C(IJ) ink maintained good dispersion and high stability under the lower I/C. The performance of SiO2-Pt/C(IJ) was significantly higher than Pt/C(IJ) at 0.6 V under all humidity conditions. In particular, the performance of SiO2-Pt/C(IJ) under low humidity conditions showed noticeable improvement regardless of current density area. From FIB-SEM, it was confirmed that the morphologies and porosities of both catalysts were the same. Thus, these results indicate that oxygen diffusion resistance, related to structure of CLs, hardly affects the performance, whereas improved performance is attributed to increased proton conductivity by silica layers containing hydrophilic groups.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.11.097
DO - 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.11.097
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85076243448
SN - 0360-3199
VL - 45
SP - 1867
EP - 1877
JO - International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
JF - International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
IS - 3
ER -
