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Temperature-Dependent Study for Electrochemical Surface Area on a Catalyst Layer Used in a PEFC

Abstract:

The total of catalytic particles is often unavailable to participate in the electrochemical reactions in a PEFC, which limits the PEFC performance. The electrochemical surface area (ECSA) becomes an important metric to diagnose the catalyst layer's performance and evaluate the development of new electrode materials to achieve better overall efficiency. This work intends to analyze the effects of a temperature sweep on the ECSA and determine the best model that fits the trend based on obtained results from in-situ cyclic voltammetry (CV) tests. The experiment was carried out using a single PEFC of 25 cm2 with a catalyst layer of 0.5mg Pt/cm2 and Nafion® 112 membrane, using hydrogen and nitrogen as reactant gases at 100% relative humidity (RH). The results show a loss of ECSA about 14% in the temperature range evaluated. Besides, it was found that a linear function is adequate to model the correlation based on the experimental data obtained.