Development of Double-Side Ordered Membrane Electrode Assembly Based on Titanium Nitride Nanoarrays

The membrane electrode assembly (MEA) plays a crucial role in the functionality of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). The channels present within the catalyst layer of MEAs exhibit a disordered configuration, which consequently give rise to low efficiency in mass transportation. This paper presents a novel double-side ordered MEA to improve its both mass transport performance and durability. Using seed-assisted hydrothermal reaction and nitriding treatment, TiN nanorods array was synthesized on ITO surface and the catalyst was uniformly coated onto the TiN support by ultrasonic spraying. After that the double-side ordered MEA was fabricated employing a transfer printing process. The electrochemical testing was conducted to evaluate the MEA’s performance, and results showed that the double-side ordered MEA can generate a peak power of 678.30 mW/cm2 with platinum loading of 0.2 mg/cm2. After chemical accelerated stress test operation, the peak performance degradation was 5%. These results provide substantial evidence for the effectiveness of our developed double-side ordered MEA can mitigate catalyst polarization corrosion. Thus, this study reveals the immense potential of the TiN nanorod array-based double-side ordered MEA could advance the development of efficient and stable MEAs.