Applied Surface Science 295 (2014) 144–149 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Applied Surface Science jou rn al h omepa g e: www.elsevier.com/locate/apsusc Gas diffusion electrode based on electrospun Pani/CNF nanofibers hybrid for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) applications M. Hezarjaribi, M. Jahanshahi ∗ , A. Rahimpour, M. Yaldagard Nanotechnology Research Institute, School of Chemical Engineering, Babol University of Technology, Iran a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 6 November 2013 Accepted 6 January 2014 Available online 13 January 2014 Keywords: Hybrid nanofibers Gas diffusion electrode Cyclic voltammetry PEM fuel cell a b s t r a c t A novel hybrid system has been investigated based on polyaniline/carbon nanofiber (Pani/CNF) elec- trospun nanofibers for modification of gas diffusion electrode (GDE) in proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC). Pani/CNF hybrid nanofibers were synthesized directly on carbon paper by electro- spinning method. For preparation of catalyst ink, 20 wt.% Pt/C electrocatalyst with a platinum loading of 0.4 mg cm -2 was prepared by polyol technique. SEM studies applied for morphological study of the modi- fied GDE with hybrid nanofibers. This technique indicated that the electrospun nanofibers had a diameter of roughly 100 nm. XRD patterns also showed that the average size of Pt nanoparticles was about 2 nm. Subsequently, comparison of the hybrid electrode electrochemical behavior and 20 wt.% Pt/C commercial one was studied by cyclic voltammetry experiment. The electrochemical data indicated that the hybrid electrode exhibited higher current density (about 15 mA cm -2 ) and ESA (160 m 2 gr -1 ) than commercial Pt/C with amount of about 10 mA cm -2 and 114 m 2 gr -1 , respectively. The results herein demonstrate that Pani/CNF nanofibers can be used as a good alternative electrode material for PEMFCs. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) have been largely investigated as alternative future energy sources for electric power generation, vehicle application etc. Due to the strong dependence of the fuel cell efficiency to electrode compo- nents, catalysts-supporting strategies have been developed. Carbon blacks (e.g., Vulcan XC-72) are usually used as catalyst support because of their large surface area, which elevates metal dispersion and due to its pore structure, which facilitate the transport of reac- tant gases, and high electrical conductivity [1]. However, there are some disadvantages related to the use of carbon black such as atten- dance of high amount of micropores, that lead to the inaccessibility of the reactive species to the catalyst and also some other problems, is corrosion of carbon surface in the fuel cell environment that can be caused fuel cell performance losses. On this basis, various alter- native catalysts supports such as nanostructured carbon materials and non-carbon materials (e.g., ceramics and conductive polymers) to improve the stability and catalytic activity of the catalyst have been studied [2–5]. Nanostructured carbon materials such as car- bon nanofibers (CNF) [6] and carbon nanotubes (CNT) [7] have been investigated as catalyst support in comparison with carbon black in ∗ Corresponding author at: Babol University of Technology, Babol, P.O. Box: 484, Iran. Tel.: +98 111 3220342; fax: +98 111 3220342. E-mail addresses: mjahan@nit.ac.ir, mmohse@yahoo.com (M. Jahanshahi). many studies due to their excellent properties such as good elec- tronic conductivity, high surface area and chemical stability and the results of these papers demonstrated that although these car- bon nanomaterials enhanced the electrochemical activity of the catalyst but corrosion of carbon also is observed although the corro- sion rate is reduced [8]. Moreover, the investigation of non-carbon catalyst supports such as conductive polymers (CPs) with suitable properties such as antipoisoning effect, high surface area and good porosity compared with carbon blacks in fuel cell conditions has shown that CPs (e.g., polyaniline and polypyrrole) although the active surface area of the catalyst increases but there are also some drawbacks such as the chemical degradation of the polymer [4]. Based on the cyclic voltammetry results, Kim and Park et al. [9] reported that catalyst supported on PtRu/Pani electrocatalyst has higher specific surface area than the same catalysts supported on carbon black. Hable and Wrighton [10] investigated the effect of polyaniline degradation on utility of platinum and showed that the catalytic efficiency is limited. Choi et al. [11] observed that the per- formance of PtRu/Pani as catalyst support was lower than of PtRu/C. Since the use of both carbon and non-carbon materials alone as cat- alyst supports has lead to failures in fuel cell conditions, therefore in recent studies, a hybrid of carbon and non-carbon materials as cat- alyst support have been studied [12]. These hybrid materials such as hybrid of conductive polymer-carbon can offer desirable proper- ties as catalyst supports than their single components. Xu et al. [13] and Wu et al. [14] prepared a Pani-C hybrid support and observed that this hybrid support have higher electrochemical activity than 0169-4332/$ – see front matter © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2014.01.018