(36d) Nanostructures for Micro and Miniature Fuel Cells by Template Wetting

Template wetting has been demonstrated as an unusually simple approach for the fabrication of nanotubes and nanowires from a variety of materials, including metals, ceramics, and polymers. This approach has not however been widely utilized for making working device structures and is poorly understood. In this work, we report the development of catalytic electrode structures and nanoporous proton exchange membranes via template wetting. Porous alumina and silicon with pore diameters in the nanoscale were used as templates to fabricate platinum nanotubes and other metallic nanostructurs for fuel cell catalysis. Similarly, novel nanoporous superacidic ceramic surfaces were fabricated within these nanoporous templates for use as fuel cell membrane structures. Both structures have been analyzed electrochemically and their performance reported. These two structures provide examples of the flexibility of this process. The process itself is not well understood at this point. First generation models of the process have been developed in our group and will be presented here.