Characterization of high-performance PEMFC electrodes produced using an industrial plasma process

Development and production of high performance fuel cell components is a major concern in the actual context of energetic challenge. Plasma processes have already demonstrated their potential as methods to produce PEMFC electrodes and membranes [1, 2, 3]. The main difficulty encountered in generally the platinum amount in the fuel cell, due to the price of this material (34~750 euros/kg in February 2010). Reducing Pt amount in the electrodes while increasing the fuel cell performance is an actual challenge both scientific and economic. The work we present here has been performed in this frame. It has been realized on the PuMa plasma equipment located in Dreux -- France. Electrodes are made of a catalytic layer of platinum deposited on conventional uncatalyzed E-Tek{\textregistered} gas diffusion layer. The deposition is performed using magnetron sputtering, assisted by a second plasma source. Electrodes are tested together with Nafion{\textregistered} 212 membrane under pure O$_{2}$ and pure H$_{2}$. Electrodes manufactured using this plasma process exhibit high performances, up to 0.9 W/cm$^{2}$ for a Pt loading lower than 0.04 mg/cm$^{2}$. [1] A.Ennajdaoui, et al., Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. 42 (2008) 9-16 [2] M. Cavarroc, et al., Electrochem. Com. 11 (2009) 859--861 [3]~A. Ennajdaoui, et al., J. Power Sources, 195 (2010) 232--238