Low platinum loading electrospun electrodes for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

An experimental study was performed to evaluate the utility of electrospun carbon nanofiber supports for sputtered platinum catalyst in proton exchange membrane fuel cells. The performance of the sputtered nanofiber supports was similar to that of sputtered commercial gas diffusion layers in single cell fuel cell tests. However, sputtered platinum electrodes performed significantly worse than commercial thin film electrodes due to high activation and concentration voltage losses. Cyclic voltammetry and rotating disc electrode experiments were performed in order to evaluate the influence of platinum loading and particle size on the electrochemical active area and oxygen reduction performance of the sputtered platinum. Active area per weight catalyst decreased with sputtering time, and the oxygen reduction activity slightly increases with increasing sputtering time. Both of these effects are thought to be due to increasing platinum particle size as sputtering time is increased.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Singer, Simcha Lev

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Yang Shao-Horn.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/38280

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/38280