Abstract:
The catalyst layers are important to the performance of the proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) since they are locations where electrochemical reactions occur. There are various techniques used for preparation of the catalyst layers on the carbon electrodes for fabricating the membrane electrode assembles (MEAs) such as painting and spraying. Besides those techniques, electrodeposition was also found to be another alternative for preparation of the catalyst layers. In this work, we study the effect of sublayers which have been fabricated prior to the electrodeposition of the Pt-catalyst. The influence of the sublayer preparation including carbon black content, PTFE content, Nafion content and glycerol content on the PEMFC performance has been investigated. The DC electrodeposition at the current density of 10 mA/cm2 and the charge density of 2 C/cm2 has been used to apply the Pt-catalyst layers on the prepared sublayers. The preliminary results show that the sublayers should consist of 2 layers the hydrophobic layer and hydrophilic layer. The combination of these two sublayers is expected to help electrodeposition process, the water management in MEA, and three-phase zone enhancement of the MEA. It was found that the PEMFC best performance can be achieved with the 1.9 mg/cm2 of the hydrophobic layer which consists of PTFE:carbon at 30:70 and the 0.8 mg/cm2 of hydrophilic layer which consists of Nafion:glycerol at 50:50 where the