Investigation of catalyst support materials for platinum electrodeposition used as electrode for PEMFC

FOUDA ONANA, FRÉDÉRIQUE; NORES PONDAL, FEDERICO J.; GUILLET, NICOLAS; BINHAZZAA, M. I.

Grenoble

Conferencia; Fundamentals and Developments of Fuel Cells Conference 2011; 2011

CNRS, CEA y el laboratorio LEPMI, de Francia.

Investigation of catalyst support materials for platinum electrodeposition used as electrode for PEMFC   F. Fouda-Onana[a], F. J. Nores-Pondal[a], N. Guillet[a] , M. I. Binhazzaa[b]. [a] Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique (CEA)/DRT/LITEN/DEHT/ Laboratoire de Composants pour les Piles à Combustible  et Electrolyseurs, et de Modélisation (LCPEM). 17, Rue des Martyrs - 38054 Grenoble Cedex 9 (France) [b] King Saud University, chemical engineering dpt, College of engineering PO Box 800 Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia       *Corresponding author   E-mail address: phoudha@hotmail.com         Keywords: Fuel cells, SEM, impedance spectroscopies, ORR fitting.          Electrodes for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell were prepared by Pt4+ electrodeposition onto gas diffusion layers. This study aims to investigate effects of the catalyst support on the electrochemical electrodes activity in fuel cell test conditions. Carbon nanotubes (CNT), carbon black (CB), titanium carbide (TiC) and titanium nitride (TiN) were used as supports and an electrode made with commercial catalyst was used as reference. It was found CNT and CB had performances slightly lower than the reference membrane electrode assembly. With 0.1 A.mg-1 at 0.9 V iR-free and 6 W.mg-1 @ 0.65 V with 0.12 mgPt cm-2 CB was the best support with the fuel cell fed with H2-O2 at 80 °C  and 1.5 bar absolute. It was observed that after correcting the roughness factor, the ohmic drop and the hydrogen permeation, all the carbon supports MEA were overlaid and most suitable than titanium as catalyst support for fuel cell application.