The effect of active screen plasma treatment conditions on the growth and performance of Pt nanowire catalyst layer in DMFCs
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Authors
Colleges, School and Institutes
External organisations
- College of Materials Science and Technology
- Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Abstract
Catalyst layers play an important role in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs), providing the reaction sites and catalysing the electrochemical reactions. For gas diffusion electrodes with Pt nanowires in-situ grown on gas diffusion layers (GDLs), the hydrophobic property of the GDL surface negatively affects the growth of the Pt nanowire catalysts, leading to the unsatisfied catalysis performance. In this work, the influence of active screen plasma (ASP) treatment temperature and duration on the growth of Pt nanowire catalyst layer was systemically studied. Single cell performance test with in-situ electrochemical surface area (ECSA) measurement were conducted to evaluate the catalysis performance of the Pt nanowire catalyst layer grown on the ASP treated carbon paper; scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to observe the surface morphology of the catalyst layer formed. Results revealed that the ASP treatment conducted at 120 °C for 10 min can effectively promote the growth of Pt nanowires on carbon paper gas diffusion layer, which exhibited the best catalysis performance.
Details
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 7622-7630 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | International Journal of Hydrogen Energy |
Volume | 41 |
Issue number | 18 |
Early online date | 27 Feb 2016 |
Publication status | Published - 18 May 2016 |
Keywords
- Active screen plasma, Direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC), Electrochemical surface area (ECSA), Gas diffusion electrode (GDE), Gas diffusion layer (GDL), Pt nanowire