Mechanical Behavior of Free-Standing Fuel Cell Electrodes on Water Surface.

Fundamental understanding of the mechanical behavior of polymer electrolyte fuel cell electrodes as free-standing materials is essential to develop mechanically robust fuel cells. However, this has been a significant challenge due to critical difficulties, such as separating the pristine electrode from the substrate without damage and precisely measuring the mechanical properties of the very fragile and thin electrodes. We report the mechanical behavior of free-standing fuel cell electrodes on the water surface through adopting an innovative ice-assisted separation method to separate the electrode from decal transfer film. It is found that doubling the ionomer content in electrodes increases not only the tensile stress at the break and the Young's modulus (E) of the electrodes by approximately 2.1-3.5 and 1.7-2.4 times, respectively, but also the elongation at the break by approximately 1.5-1.7 times, which indicates that stronger, stiffer, and tougher electrodes are attained with increasing ionomer content, which have been of significant interest in materials research fields. The scaling law relationship between Young's modulus and density (ρ) has been unveiled as E ∼ ρ(1.6), and it is compared with other materials. These findings can be used to develop mechanically robust electrodes for fuel cell applications.

Direct observation of nanoscale Pt electrode agglomeration at the triple phase boundary.

Nanoporous platinum electrode thin films were delaminated from yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) substrates via double cantilever beam delamination to reveal the structure located at the interface between electrode and electrolyte. The thermally driven morphological evolution between the electrode top surface and the substrate contact interface of agglomerated nanoporous platinum thin films were compared. We found the temperature required for significant agglomeration to occur was approximately 100 °C higher at the electrolyte contact interface side than at the top surface side. Judging the reaction active site from the electrode top surface could be inaccurate because higher resistance of thermal agglomeration at the interface could retain the reaction active site during fuel cell operation.