Ice Nucleation Mechanisms on Platinum Surfaces in PEM Fuel Cells: Effects of Surface Morphology and Wettability

Understanding the ice nucleation mechanism in the catalyst layers (CLs) of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells and inhibiting icing by designing the CLs can optimize the cold start strategies, which can enhance the performance of PEM fuel cells. Herein, mitigating the structural matching and templating effects by adjusting the surface morphology and wettability can inhibit icing on the platinum (Pt) catalyst surface effectively. The Pt(211) surface can inhibit icing because the atomic spacing of (211) crystalline surface is much larger than the characteristic distance of ice crystal, thereby mitigating the structural matching effects. A water overlayer on the Pt surface induced by the strong attraction of Pt can act as a template for ice layers and plays an important role in the icing process. Buckling of water overlayer due to the larger atomic spacing of (211) crystalline surface mitigates the templating effect and inhibits icing. Moreover, the water overlayer on the hydrophobic Pt(211) surface with fewer water molecules also mitigates the templating effect, which makes ice nucleation more difficult than homogeneous nucleation. These findings reveal the ice nucleation mechanisms on the Pt catalyst surface from the molecular level and are valuable for catalyst designs to inhibit icing in CL.