Electrohydrodynamic atomization of liquid suspensions for preparation of catalytic materials

The electrohydrodynamic atomization of a liquid suspension is used as the feeding source to aerosolize nanoparticles which are driven by the external electrical field towards a collector where a deposit is formed. The electrospray works in a stable cone-jet mode in a large parameter space region and the structure of the deposit can be controlled by adjusting the dynamics of particle arrival to the collector. This method allows manufacturing very porous materials with a large active area which are suitable for catalytic processes. In this work, Pt on carbon nanoparticles dispersed in ethanol constitutes the blocks to build nanostructured catalytic layers which are tested as electrodes for PEM fuel cells. The electrodes assembled in this way have shown a large performance which overcomes the maximum platinum utilization compared to catalytic layers prepared by other techniques. Moreover, the fuel cells may work in a stable regimen for long times. These results encourage the application of this aerosol process for other purposes.