The Frequency Response on the Super-Meniscus EQCM for Dissolution Modeling of Platinum at PEFC Cathode

Abstract

The electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) technique was used to analyze the dissolution behavior of the Nafion^®-coated platinum electrode completely or partially immersed in an acidic media. A bare smooth Pt/QC electrode and the one coated with a 0.77 μm Nafion^® thin film were used as the working electrodes. The frequency changes in the Nafion^®-coated Pt/QC electrodes, which were partially immersed in 0.5 M H₂SO₄ at 298K, were similar to those of the completely immersed Pt/QC electrodes during potential sweeps. These results indicated that the frequency change in the Nafion^®-coated Pt/QC electrode was successfully applied to modeling and analyzing Pt dissolution at the actual PEFC cathode, and we called the new analytical method the “super-meniscus EQCM technique”.