High aspect ratio, nanostructured, platinum based electrodes for proton exchange membrane fuel cells: Design, development and ionic conduction of the proposed structures

High aspect ratio nanostructures can provide substantial benefits when used as fuel cell electrodes since they can alleviate problems associated with conventional carbon supports. In this work the potential of incorporating high aspect ratio nanostructures as electrodes for fuel cells was studied. Moreover, a model was created that demonstrated the potential for the nanostructures to yield high performance. The creation of Pt nanorods using anodic aluminum oxide templates was investigated and experiments showed complete utilization of the electrodes surface area.;However, the Pt nanorod structure was found to not be effective in terms of Pt mass utilization, since only the outer surface of the rod is utilized for catalytic activity. An alternate method was developed to coat (with Pt) high aspect ratio structures made from a cost-effective support material. Thus far, methods used to conformally coat Pt either cannot be used directly on several materials or tend not to be cost-effective. A non-vacuum method based on an Aerosol Assisted Deposition (AAD) technique was developed and optimized. Initial experiments showed feasibility of the technique to coat a large variety of substrates. Dimensions of the particles were controlled by the deposition parameters and ranged from 4 nm up to several hundreds of nm in diameter. Experiments where Pt nanoparticles were deposited on gas diffusion layer substrates, showed higher electrochemical performance compared to commercial catalyst.;The need for electrolyte coating on the high aspect ratio structures was also investigated. Initial experiments were performed by splitting an MEA in half and using an intermediate Pt film. These experiments showed that ionic conduction on Pt surface is possible. Moreover these studies indicated that ionic conduction on Pt could result from hydrophilic groups that can exist on its surface. Since these groups can either be physisorbed due to presence of water or chemisorbed on the oxidized Pt surface, the latter was investigated by creating a uniform film of oxidized Pt using AAD. However, stability studies showed that oxidized Pt is not stable in a fuel cell environment where hydrogen is present; hence the ionic conduction mechanism was attributed to physisorbed species in the presence of water.