Highly active ultralow loading Pt electrodes for hydrogen evolution reaction developed by magnetron sputtering

Abstract

Developing cost-effective components for PEM electrolyzers is key to transforming renewable energy into H2. Platinum is a scarce and expensive material but also, is the most active known catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction in PEM electrolysis; thus it is of utmost importance to focus on developing electrocatalysts that utilize the minimum amount of platinum without losses in cell performance to make PEM electrolysis affordable. In addition, and with the aim of scaling up electrode production, it is imperative to develop a robust automated industrial manufacturing process to avoid the waste of catalyst during electrode preparation. In this work, magnetron sputtering gas aggregation method is studied for developing three low loading Pt electrodes (0.105, 0.062, and 0.052 mg cm−2), achieving remarkable overpotentials as low as 8 mV at 10 mA cm−2 for HER, showing similar activity than commercial Pt electrodes with more than 4 times less Pt (compared to 0.3 mgcm−2 Pt commercial GDL).