Magnetron Sputtered Iridium-Ruthenium Thin-Film Catalyst for Oxygen Evolution Reaction
Authors: Hrbek Tomas , Kus Peter , Košutová Tereza , Veltruská Kateřina , Dinhová Thu Ngan , Matolin Vladimir , Matolínová Iva 
Published: July 2021

In today´s developed world, there is a huge pressure on increasing the amount of electricity produced by renewable sources. With growing percentage of electricity from wind and solar power plants, new challenges arise. The biggest issue seems to be the instability of generated electricity during the days. Possible solution can be offered by Proton Exchange Membrane Water Electrolyzers (PEM-WE) and Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEM-FC) through electricity-hydrogen-electricity conversion cycle. Although PEM-WE technology is well suited for scale-up, one major drawback – its dependence on noble metal catalysts remains to be solved. Both, Ir on the anode and Pt on the cathode, which are traditionally used, are extremely rare and expensive, thus their partial replacement by other materials can lead to the noticeable decrease of PEM-WE price. More focus is usually laid on the anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) which is catalytically much more demanding. Ruthenium catalyst appears to be an interesting alternative due to its high activity towards OER. However, low electrochemical stability of Ru renders it inapplicable in its pure form. This problem can be solved by using mixed iridium-ruthenium catalyst which benefits from stability of iridium and from the lower price and high activity of ruthenium.

In this work we present magnetron sputtered thin-film iridium-ruthenium mixed catalyst for the OER on the anode of PEM-WE. Magnetron sputtering is a mean of catalyst deposition which allows the preparation of a thin films of exact concentration and thickness. Moreover, it is also possible to use it on industrial scales. Usage of magnetron sputtering provides several important advantages. Firstly, we are able to cut down the amount of used catalyst significantly -- usually 10 times less than in the case of powder catalyst. Secondly, it is possible to prepare small systems for detailed electrochemical and surface analysis and also bigger systems for testing of our catalysts at real electrolyzer. This allows us to narrow the gap between the model and controlled studies and real industrial systems.

In our work, we present four concentration of mixed iridium-ruthenium catalyst prepared by magnetron sputtering. Each catalyst was prepared either on Glassy Carbon electrode, or on Nafion® NR212. Measurement on Nafion® NR212 helps us to pick the industrially most suitable candidate. Measurements on the Glassy Carbon electrodes allows to investigate the activity and stability of given catalysts and correlate it with their structural and chemical properties. Numerous techniques were used, specifically Rotation Disk Electrode (RDE), Potential Electrochemically Impedance Spectroscopy (PEIS), Scanning Electron Microscopy, Energy Dispersive X-Ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD). Combination of these techniques revealed that 25:75 Ir:Ru sputtered thin-film catalyst outperforms the benchmark pure Ir counterpart while retaining comparable electrochemical stability.

Figure 1