Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are a promising energy source with high efficiency and low emission. The electrochemical reaction of PEMFCs occurs at 3-phase interface where the electrolyte, catalyst and reactants contact in a membrane electrode assembly (MEA). Especially, optimum ionomer content and distribution have a vital part for achieving a high-efficient electrochemical conversion by providing a good proton transport rate in the catalyst layer. Although there are numerous researches on ionomer, understanding the structure and property of distributed ionomers in catalyst layer is still under infancy stage. Therefore, we investigated the structure and behaviour of ionomer on catalyst interface to identify the effect of modification of catalyst layer on ionomer distribution using molecular dynamics simulation. We reported that the alkylthiol modification of Pt catalyst layer made surface more hydrophobic, and ionomer distribution on alkylthiol-modified Pt surface differ from pure Pt surface. In the pure Pt surface system, the hydrophilic component such as water, hydronium and sulfonate group of Nafion mainly distributes on pure Pt surface. On the other hand, the alkylthiol-modified Pt surface show more arrangement of hydrophobic component including backbone of Nafion. In addition, we checked the accompanied change on interaction of Nafion-solvent and solvent-solvent interaction as the change of distribution on surface.

Investigation on ionomer distribution of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells

254th National Meeting (2017)

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