(Invited) Towards Obtaining Rotating Disk Electrode Activity in a Membrane Electrode Assembly; Implications of the Electrocatalyst-Ionomer Interface for the Oxygen Reduction Reaction
Authors: Neyerlin Kenneth C. 
Published: December 2020

The proper integration of materials to enable high performing low temperature fuel cell operation has never been more crucial to realizing the isolated (e.g. half-cell or ex-situ) improvements of advanced electrocatalysts, supports and ionomers in an effort to maximize efficiency and fuel. This integration pathway for oxygen reduction electrocatalysts, from initial testing in a rotating disk electrode (RDE) to their apex form as porous electrodes in a membrane electrode assembly (MEA), is replete with potential pitfalls. Along the route to improving MEA level electrocatalyst kinetics and electrode transport properties are numerous choices relating to ink formulation (i.e. solvents and solvent ratios), ink processing and deposition methodology, ionomer content and chemistry and electrochemical MEA conditioning. Combined with carbon morphology/porosity, such variables can alter the final electrode morphology, influencing active site accessibility and ORR activity as well as oxygen transport resistance and electrode proton conductivity.[1–5]
Here, the development and utilization of in situ diagnostics designed to probe specific phenomena (e.g. catalyst/ionomer interactions, molecular and Knudsen diffusion, electrochemical active site accessibility and catalyst layer proton resistance) will be presented as tools to contrast the ink, processing and fabrication methods necessary to achieve high performance PGM (e.g. Pt/C and Pt alloy/C) and PGM-free (e.g. FeNx/C) electrocatalysts based electrodes. For PGM based MEAs, the dynamic effects of electrochemical conditioning will be examined in an effort to both baseline MEA level performance and decouple the contributions of simultaneous electrocatalyst particle growth and the removal of system impurities.[6] The prerequisite understanding gleaned from the application of electrochemical diagnostics and MEA conditioning procedures will be combined with the development of a novel sulfonated ionic liquid block copolymer ionomer and tailored integration methodology to illustrate a pathway towards improved MEA level performance.[7]
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