Hierarchical Wrinkle-Structured Catalyst Layer/Membrane Interface for Ultralow Pt-Loading Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs)

Abstract

The optimal architecture of three-dimensional (3D) interface between a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) and catalyst layer (CL) is one of the most important issues to improve PEM fuel cells' (PEMFCs) performance. Here, we report the fabrication of hierarchical wrinkled PEM/CL interface over a large area. We fabricated the hierarchical wrinkles on a multiscale from nanometers to micrometers by bottom-up-based facile, scalable, and simple method. Notably, it allows one to go beyond the limit of the catalyst utilization by extremely enlarged interfacial area. The resulting hierarchical wrinkled PEM/CL displays a dramatically increased electrochemically active surface area (ECSA) and power performance by the enhancement factors of 89% and 67% compared with those of flat interface, which is one of the best enhancements compared to previous PEMFCs. We believe the scalability of hierarchical wrinkled interface can be exploited to design advanced 3D interfaces for high-performance PEMFCs even with ultralow Pt-loading.