An in situ technique for analyzing ionomer coverage in catalyst layers

An in situ technique for analyzing ionomer coverage, θion, in catalyst layers was examined. Contributions of Pt and water to electric double layer capacitance, Cdl, were extracted by carbon monoxide (CO) adsorption and the RH dependence of Cdl, respectively. Consequently, θion for Pt (θion,Pt) and the carbon support (θion,C) were obtained by comparing Cdl attributed to different interfaces, namely, the interface between the electroconductor and the ionomer or that between the electroconductor and water. The validity of the method was verified by various analyses and experiments, such as water adsorption analysis, analysis of specific capacitance and electrochemical surface area analysis by CO stripping voltammetry. θion of the catalyst layer with two different carbon supports, either ketjen black (KB) or graphitized ketjen black (GKB), was evaluated with this method. In the case of a GKB-based catalyst layer, CO apparently did not cover the entire Pt surface, making the analysis more complicated. In this case, applying Cdl of a pseudo catalyst layer, consisting of the carbon support and the ionomer, was deemed as appropriate. The analysis revealed that θion,Pt and θion,C were ca. 0.39 and ca. 0.25 in the KB system and ca. 0.49 and more than 0.91 in the GKB system. Although the number of primary pores in GKB is very small, θion,Pt seemed small compared with θion,C. From SEM and TEM images, it was found that Pt particles formed clusters on the GKB surface. Presumably, the narrow voids of the Pt clusters contributed to the low θion,Pt.

► We established an in situ technique for ionomer coverage in a catalyst layer.
► We applied the method to catalyst layers with different carbon support (KB and GKB).
► KB showed lower ionomer coverage due to its porous structure.
► GKB showed not so high ionomer coverage on Pt despite it has little primary pores.
► In the case of GKB, Pt formed clusters and caused small ionomer coverage.