Integrated plasma synthesis of efficient catalytic nanostructures for fuel cell electrodes

A single plasma process involving three consecutive steps has been developed for producing high gas flow catalytic nanostructures on the electrodes of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells (FC). Using a high density helicon radio frequency (13.56 MHz) plasma, nickel is sputtered onto a porous carbon support. Changing the background gas from argon to methane/hydrogen allowed 2 μm long, 37 nm diameter carbon nanofibres (CNFs) to be grown by diffusion through the nickel clusters in a 'tip growth' mechanism at the relatively low temperature of 400°C. The third step involves plasma sputtering of platinum onto the CNFs, resulting in nanoclusters (3-8 nm) being formed on the periphery of the CNFs. Four FC cathodes were synthesized on carbon paper and PTFE/carbon loaded cloth (known as gas diffusion layer, GDL), both with and without CNFs, with the Pt/CNFs nanostructures grown on PTFE/carbon loaded cloth having the best FC performances. Compared with conventional FCs, the efficiency of sputtered platinum in the Pt/CNF based cathode is much higher than in a chemically deposited system over the entire range of operating current. This indicates that combination of different, simple, plasma techniques is an effective method for preparing highly efficient catalyst layers.