Carbon Nanotubes as Catalyst Support For Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells

摘要

Catalyst layers in Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells (PEFC) are typically a composition of catalyst particles, ionomer and open pore space in between. Conventionally, the catalyst particles are nano-sized Pt crystals (～2-3 nm) supported on nano-sized, high surface area carbon-black particles (～25-100 nm). Conventional carbon black supported catalyst layers suffer from the corrosion of carbon support, which result in rapid degradation of the performance as the Pt crystals are no longer properly supported, causing them to penetrate into the membrane, or agglomerating to form much larger particles resulting in significant loss of active catalyst sites.