Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

Leland Stanford Junior University

Xirong Jiang

Stacey F Bent

Yuji Saito

Friedrich B Prinz

Rong Chen

Masayuki Sugawara

Hong Huang

Joon Hyung Shim

Xu Tian

Marja N Mullings

A method of fabricating a layer-structured catalysts at the electrode/electrolyte interface of a fuel cell is provided. The method includes providing a substrate, depositing an electrolyte layer on the substrate, depositing a catalyst bonding layer to the electrolyte layer, depositing a catalyst layer to the catalyst bonding layer, and depositing a microstructure stabilizing layer to the catalyst layer, where the bonding layer improves adhesion of the catalyst onto the electrolyte. The catalyst and a current collector is a porous catalyst and a fully dense current collector, or a fully dense catalyst and a fully dense current collector structure layer. A nano-island catalyst and current collector structure layer is deposited over the catalyst and current collector or over the bonding layer, which is deposited over the electrolyte layer. The fuel cell can be hydrogen-fueled solid oxide, solid oxide with hydrocarbons, solid sensor, solid acid, polymer electrolyte or direct methanol.

Process for making layer-structured catalysts at the electrode/electrolyte interface of a fuel cell

A method of growing spatially-separated and size-controlled particles on substrate surfaces is provided. The method utilizes chemical modification of the substrate surface, an atomic layer deposition (ALD) system, providing a modified layer to the substrate surface and providing an ALD material for nanoparticle deposition. The method induces a Volmer-Weber growth method, where islands of the nanoparticles are formed on the surface. The modified layer controls a number of nucleation sites on the surface, where controlling the number of ALD cycles limits an amount of deposited the material for discrete the nanoparticles. The modified layer can include self-assembled monolayers, modified hydrophobicity of the surface, H-terminated surfaces, and varying functional groups within the modified layer, where thermally attached alkenes, photochemically attached alkenes, thermally attached alkynes or photochemically attached alkynes are attached to the H-terminated surfaces, and the density of the nucleation sites of the nanoparticles are thereby managed.

Fabrication method of size-controlled, spatially distributed nanostructures by atomic layer deposition

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Stanford, CA, United States of America

Xirong Jiang