Effects of sputtering parameters on the performance of electrodes fabricated for proton exchange membrane fuel cells

One way to alleviate the emission of air pollutants and CO2 due to burning fossil fuels is the use of fuel cells. Sputter deposition techniques are good candidates for the fabrication of electrodes used for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). Input power and sputtering-gas pressure are two important parameters in a sputtering process. However, little is known about the effects of these sputtering parameters on the performance of PEMFC electrodes. Therefore, this study applied a radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputter deposition process to prepare PEMFC electrodes and investigated the effects of RF power and sputtering-gas pressure in electrode fabrication on electrode/cell performance. At a Pt loading of 0.1 mg cm−2, the electrode fabricated at 100 W, 10−3 Torr was found to exhibit the best performance mainly due to its lowest kinetic (activation) resistance (dominating the cell performance) in comparison to those fabricated by 50 and 150 W at 10−3 Torr, as well as by 10−4 and 10−2 Torr at 100 W. In the tested ranges, the control of sputtering-gas pressure seems to be more critical than that of RF power for the activation loss. In addition to electrochemically active surface area, electrode microstructure should also be responsible for electrode/cell polarization, particularly the activation polarization.