부산대학교 도서관

Catalyst ink comprising ionomers and catalyst particles is used in the decal method to fabricate the catalyst layer (CL) of polymer electrolyte fuel cell which plays a critical role in fuel cell operation. Herein, we propose a novel approach to investigate the characteristics of catalyst ink using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy combined with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We investigated the dispersion state of catalyst or ionomer at each stage of the preparation process of catalyst ink. Significant changes of catalyst ink were observed in the MRI images as well as 1H and 19F NMR spectra, and we found that a remarkable amount of air bubbles was trapped in the highly-viscous catalyst ink. We also performed viscosity measurement of catalyst ink and the obtained characteristics supported the interpretation of the NMR/MRI results. We demonstrated that our approach provided a unique capability to investigate the catalyst ink and CL fabrication.