High Performance Plasma Sputtered Fuel Cell Electrodes with Ultra Low catalytic metal Loadings

Christophe Coutanceau (1) , Pascal Brault (2) , Amaël Caillard (2) , Mathieu Mougenot (2, 3) , Steve Baranton (1) , Aboubakr Ennajdaoui (3) , Marjorie Cavarroc (3)

1 LACCO [Poitiers] - Laboratoire de catalyse en chimie organique [UMR 6503]
2 GREMI - Groupe de recherches sur l'énergétique des milieux ionisés
3 MID - MID Dreux Innovation

Ultra-low Pt content PEMFC electrodes have been manufactured using magnetron co-sputtering of carbon and platinum on a commercial E-Tek_ uncatalyzed gas diffusion layer in plasma fuel cell deposition devices. Pt loadings lower than 0.01 mg cm-2 have been realized. The Pt catalyst is dispersed as small clusters with size less than 2 nm over a depth of 500 nm. PEMFC test with symmetric electrodes loaded with 0.01 mg cm-2 led to maximum reproducible power densities as high as 0.4 Wcm-2 with Nafion 212. Replacement of platinum was also realized by preparing MEAs composed of 0.01 mgPd cm-2 for the anode and 0.01 mgPd cm-2 + 0.001 mgPt cm-2 for the cathode and Nafion 212 membrane. Power density as high as 250 mW cm-2 were achieved at 80°C, which corresponds to a specific power density of 250 kW gPt-1

Domaines: Plasmas

Christophe Coutanceau, Pascal Brault, Amaël Caillard, Mathieu Mougenot, Steve Baranton, et al.. High Performance Plasma Sputtered Fuel Cell Electrodes with Ultra Low catalytic metal Loadings. ECS Transactions, 2011, 41, pp.1151-1159. ⟨hal-00642254⟩