Plasma sputtering deposition of platinum into porous fuel cell electrodes

P. Brault*, A. Caillard, A. L. Thomann, J. Mathias, C. Charles, R. W. Boswell, S. Escribano, J. Durand, T. Sauvage

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    87 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Platinum is deposited into porous carbon materials relevant for fuel cell electrodes using plasma sputtering techniques. The resulting platinum concentration profile extends up to 2 μm into the porous carbon and is well fitted by a generalized stretched Gaussian function, which displays the non-thermal nature of the penetration process. Platinum deposits are observed to grow as clusters. On the outermost carbon particles, platinum nano-cluster sizes of 3.5 nm have been measured. In tests using actual PEM fuel cells, current densities as high as 1000mA cm-2 have been obtained at 400 mV with 25 cm2 plasma electrodes. This compares favourably with commercially available electrodes but the present electrodes have a platinum density 4.5 times lower and hence can be considered to be significantly more efficient.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)3419-3423
    Number of pages5
    JournalJournal Physics D: Applied Physics
    Volume37
    Issue number24
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 21 Dec 2004

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Plasma sputtering deposition of platinum into porous fuel cell electrodes'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this