Effect of deposition temperature on bimetallic PtCu membrane electrode catalytic activity toward hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract

Abstract The bimetallic PtCu membrane at a certain deposition temperature was prepared by Ion Bean Sputtering (IBS) using graphite fibre cloth as the supporting material. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) and linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) tests were applied to investigate the effect of deposition temperature on hydrogen evolution reaction activity before and after modification. Amperometric I-t test was applied to investigate the catalytic stability of the electrodes. The micro-morphology was observed by STEM, the composition and phase structure of the coating was analyzed by EDS and XRD. The tests showed that the catalytic activity for hydrogen evolution reaction increased firstly and then decreased with the deposition temperature ascending. And there is the highest hydrogen-evolution activity when the deposition temperature is at 250 °C. Combined with the impact of post-process modification on hydrogen-evolution activity, there is the highest activity for bimetallic PtCu membrane electrode and optimal deposition temperature for IBS when the temperature is at 250 °C–275 °C.