Blocking the sulfonate group in Nafion to unlock platinum’s activity in membrane electrode assemblies

The specific adsorption of ionomer sulfonate groups on Pt-based catalysts in membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) has severely restricted Pt catalytic activity, utilization, proton conductivity and mass transport. Here we report a blocking strategy using cyclohexanol to mitigate the detrimental impacts Nafion ionomer. Cyclohexanol with chair or boat conformation blocked path onto surface via coordination ionomer, which released activity sites dramatically improved transport path. This MEA exhibits striking performance improvement kinetic regions, along strong stability. proposed provides direction tune Pt/ionomer interface improve MEA. full potential well-known platinum oxygen reduction catalyst not been realized assembly for fuel cells due required layer. authors show how can block interaction between benefits reaction kinetics