Application of Electrospinning Technique in the Fabrication of Catalyst Layer of Membrane Electrode Assemblies

Author(s)

Joshua Sightler
Eli McPherson
William A. Rigdon, University of South Carolina - ColumbiaFollow
Xinyu Huang, University of South Carolina - ColumbiaFollow

Document Type

Article

Subject Area(s)

Chemical Engineering

Abstract

Inspired by the original work published by Pintauro's group, the authors investigated the application of an electrospinning (E-spin) method for the fabrication of the catalyst layer of proton exchange membrane fuel cell electrode. Electrochemical performance of the membrane electrode assemblies (MEA) produced by E-spin was characterized can compared with MEA produced with an ultrasonic spraying technique. A simple polarization curve analysis was conducted to help resolve the sources of over-potential. The platinum loading, electrode morphology were characterized by X-ray fluorescence and scanning electron microscopy. The electrospinning technique was found to yield high performance electrode with low platinum loading. The E-spin method resulted in an electrode with high electrochemical area and platinum utilization.

Publication Info

Postprint version. Published in ECS Transactions, Volume 50, Issue 2, 2013, pages 1445-1451.

Rights

© ECS Transactions, 2013, Electrochemical Society

Sightler, J.J., McPherson, E., Rigdon, W.A., Huang, X. (2013). Application of Electrospinning Technique in the Fabrication of Catalyst Layer of Membrane Electrode Assemblies. ECS Transactions, 50(2), 1445-1451.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1149/05002.1445ecst