Investigation of new catalysts for polymer membrane fuel cells

Polymer membrane fuel cells (PMFC) are expected to be future power production system for clean and efficient generation of electricity from hydrogen and hydrocarbons. Platinum in pure form or alloyed with other elements is regarded as the only choice so far for high and stable performance. As a consequence fabrication of fuel cells would be expensive. For this reason substantial decrease of Pt loading and research of new low cost anode materials with high activity is necessary. Pt-oxide anode materials such as Pt-RuO2, Pt-SnO2, or Pt-WO3 have been reported. Recently, the anode properties of Pt-CeO2 have been investigated for the development of PMFC.

Non-reactive radio frequency (rf) magnetron sputtering will be used to deposit Pt-(Sn)CeO2 thin films on the carbon and oxide porous supports suitable for the fuel cell tests. Measurements of the catalysts performance will be combined with fundamental studies of the catalytic reaction mechanism.