Carbon Nanofibers/Fabrics and Pulse Electrochemical Deposition Catalyst As a Gas Diffusion Electrode for Application in a Fuel Cell

Abstract

A carbonaceous material (carbon nanofibers/fabrics, CNFs/CFs), that carbon nanofibers are directly grown upon carbon fabrics, is also used as one of the catalyst supporters in this experiment. It is a successful debut of the pulse electrochemical deposition method for decorating Pd particles on carbon fabrics. The ultrafine particle noble metal, acting as a catalyst in a fuel cell, is heterogeneously nucleated on the interphase between the solid surfaces of carbon fabrics and liquid electrolyte. By imposing the pulse potential energy, the method provides an energy barrier to limit the grain growth of cluster nuclei, while it has catalyst nucleation promotion. PdCl2 solution was directly used as the precursor on carbon fabrics (CFs) and CNFs/CFs by the pulse electrochemical deposition method. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), X-ray powder diffraction analyses (XRD), and electrochemical experiments are used to observe and measure the catalysts and substrate. The catalytic growth mechanism and performance on a fuel cell are discussed. When catalytic carbon nanofiber fabrics were assembled with Nafion 117 as half-cell modules, electrochemical half-cell analyses showed that the half-cell module had 10.3 mA/cm2 in value.