Performance of plasma sputtered fuel cell electrodes with ultra-low Pt loadings

Ultra-low Pt content PEMFC electrodes have been manufactured using magnetron co-sputtering of carbon and platinum on a commercial E-Tek(R) uncatalyzed gas diffusion layer in plasma fuel cell deposition devices. Pt loadings of 0.16 and 0.01 mg cm(-2) have been realized. The Pt catalyst is dispersed as small clusters with size less than 2 nm over a depth of 500 nm. PEMFC test with symmetric electrodes loaded with 10 mu g cm(-2) led to maximum reproducible power densities as high as 0.4 and 0.17 W cm(-2) with Nafion(R)212 and Nafion(R)115 membranes, respectively. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.