Applications of Atomic Layer Deposition on Fabrication of Nano-Catalysts

摘要

Developments of high conversion-efficiency fuel cell and renewable energy are important to solve the problems arisen from the fast consumption of natural resources and global warming due to industrialization. In this study, atomic layer deposition (ALD) is proposed to fabricate nano-catalysts for proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), photocatalysis and water splitting for hydrogen generation. ALD offers good coating conformity over complicated substrates with atomic scale thickness control. Platinum nanoparticles prepared by ALD were used as the catalyst for PEMFC. Compared with commercial electrode, only one thirtieth amount of platinum loading could achieve similar performance of PEMFC. The reduction of platinum loading can enable and accelerate the commercialization of PEMFC. Besides, TiO_2 nanotubes prepared by using ALD technique and anodized aluminum oxide template have excellent performance of photocatalysis. Preliminary study also shows that the TiO_2 nanotubes can be a good catalyst of water splitting to generate hydrogen with the aid of solar energy.