Plasma sputtering deposition of platinum into porous fuel cell electrodes

Platinum is deposited into porous carbon materials relevant for fuel cell electrodes using plasma sputtering techniques. The resulting platinum concentration profile extends up to 2 µm into the porous carbon and is well fitted by a generalized stretched Gaussian function, which displays the non-thermal nature of the penetration process. Platinum deposits are observed to grow as clusters. On the outermost carbon particles, platinum nano-cluster sizes of 3.5 nm have been measured. In tests using actual PEM fuel cells, current densities as high as 1000 mA cm −2 have been obtained at 400 mV with 25 cm 2 plasma electrodes. This compares favourably with commercially available electrodes but the present electrodes have a platinum density 4.5 times lower and hence can be considered to be significantly more efficient.