Preparation of catalysts using thin film (TF) techniques is not used yet in heterogeneous catalysis because TF technologies are generally considered as incompatible with the preparation of sufficiently large surface areas. Moreover catalytic loading of large-sized reactors is not possible. These arguments, however, do not hold for the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) application. The TF coating technology for supported catalysts can be parallelized and scaled, with the size of the deposition facility being the only limitation. Most importantly, however, high-surface-area nanoporous catalyst films can indeed be prepared by suitable deposition techniques.Platinum is the most versatile element in catalysis, but it is rare and its high price limits large-scale applications, for example in fuel cell technology. Still, conventional catalysts use only a small fraction of the Pt content, i.e. those atoms located at the catalyst's surface. To maximize the noble metal efficiency, Pt should be atomically dispersed and located at the very surface layer of the material. Such atomically dispersed Pt surface species can indeed be prepared with exceptionally high stability. We identify a specific structural element, a ceria �nanopocket�, which binds Pt2+so strongly that it withstands sintering and bulk diffusion. These new materials may help to reduce the demand for noble-metals in catalytic applications. One example is the deposition of Pt doped cerium oxide TFs on nanostructured carbon surfaces.The new class low cost catalyst was prepared by magnetron sputtering deposition of Pt2+ doped cerium oxide TF as anode and Pt-Co sputtered alloy TF as cathode. The PEMFC test results showed that the thin film made PEM single FC revealed high stability and power density of 150 mW/cm2 with 50 �g of Pt per 1 cm2 of MEA (2 �g and 48 �g Pt/cm2 for anode and cathode, respectively).

Thin film catalysts for PEMFCs

248th National Meeting (2014)

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