Miniature fuel cell with monolithically fabricated Si electrodes – Uniformity of Catalyst Layer Thickness -

Abstract

Uniformity of catalyst layer thickness was improved to obtained higher output with our miniature fuel cells. Though the miniature fuel cells demonstrated high power density about 500mW/cm2 with 1 mm2 reaction area, it was difficult to maintain the power density with larger reaction area and careful observation of the prototypes revealed that the porous Si layer, which should be etched away completely, remained on the channel bottoms. Nonuniform porous Pt catalyst layer thickness was suspicious for the residual porous Si, and rotation of the plating vessel in the Pt deposition process was performed to mitigate variation of the catalyst layer thickness. Though the power density was still low with larger reaction area, the larger output was successfully obtained with the vessel rotation.