A catalyst layer comprising an interface to a polyelectrolyte membrane, the catalyst layer includes a layer forming material, which includes a catalytic substance, a conductive carrier which supports the catalytic substance, a polyelectrolyte, and a fibrous material, and a plurality of pores which contain no layer forming material. A pore area ratio which is a total area ratio of the plurality of pores to an area of a cross-section orthogonal to the interface is 25.0% or more and 35.0% or less in a cross-sectional image captured by a scanning electron microscope.

Disclosed are a polymer electrolyte membrane for fuel cells which has improved handling properties and mechanical strength by employing symmetric-type laminated composite films and a method for manufacturing the same.

An electrocatalyst includes a carbon substrate, metal oxide particles dispersed on the carbon substrate, and metal catalyst particles. The metal catalyst particles are metal substitutions in the metal oxide particles, or adsorbed on the metal oxide particles.

The invention is related to a carbon supported catalyst comprising a carbon-comprising support with a BET surface area in a range from 400 m.sup.2/g to 2000 m.sup.2/g, a modifier comprising at least one mixed metal oxide, comprising niobium and titanium, and/or a mixture, comprising niobium oxide and titanium oxide, a catalytically active metal compound, wherein the catalytically active metal compound is platinum or an alloy comprising platinum and a second metal or an intermetallic compound comprising platinum and a second metal, the second metal being selected from the group consisting of cobalt, nickel, chromium, copper, palladium, gold, ruthenium, scandium, yttrium, lanthanum, niobium, iron, vanadium and titanium.

The invention is further related to a process for preparing the carbon supported catalyst.

To provide electrode catalyst (core-shell catalyst) having an excellent catalyst activity which contributes to lower the cost of the PEFC. The electrode catalyst has catalyst particles supported an a support. The catalyst particle has a core part containing simple Pd and a shell part containing simple Pt. A percentage R.sub.C (atom %) of the carbon of the support and a percentage R.sub.Pd (atom %) of the simple Pd in an analytical region near a surface measured by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) satisfy the conditions of the following equation (1): 2.15≦[100×R.sub.Pd/(R.sub.Pd+R.sub.C)].

A non-aqueous fuel cell catalyst includes a carbon support medium; a coating layer comprising a proton-conducting polymer including a phosphoric acid group coated on a surface of the carbon support medium; and a support member comprising platinum or a platinum alloy supported on the coating layer.

This anode catalyst layer for a fuel cell contains electrode catalyst particles, a carbon carrier on which the electrode catalyst particles are loaded, water electrolysis catalyst particles, a proton-conducting binder, and graphitized carbon. The graphitized carbon has a bulk density of 0.50/cm.sup.3 or less.

A unit cell of a fuel cell may include: a membrane-electrode assembly including a proton exchange membrane, an anode electrode fastened to a first face of the proton exchange membrane, a first flow guide plate positioned facing the anode electrode and including at least one flow channel having a fuel inlet zone, a median flow zone and a fuel outlet zone. The anode electrode may have, at the fuel outlet zone, a tolerance to carbon monoxide pollution greater than its average tolerance to carbon monoxide pollution at the median flow zone and at the fuel inlet zone.

A method for producing a catalyst-coated membrane includes: producing and/or providing at least one first ink with a first ink composition, comprising supported catalyst particles, a proton-conductive ionomer, and a dispersing agent, the content of the supported catalyst particles in the composition remaining below the content of the proton-conductive ionomer; unwinding a web-shaped proton-conductive membrane material which is provided on a roll; applying at least one layer of the first ink onto at least one section of the membrane material using a first application tool; and sputtering a catalyst powder consisting of or comprising catalyst particles onto a surface of the outermost ink layer facing away from the membrane material using a sputtering device.

Metastable alloys have recently emerged as high-performance catalysts, extending the toolbox of binary alloy materials that can be utilized to mediate electrocatalytic reactions. In particular, nanostructured metastable ordered intermetallic compounds are particularly challenging to synthesize. Here the present invention is directed to a method for synthesizing sub-15 nm metastable ordered intermetallic Pd31Bi12 nanoparticles at room temperature, in a single step, by pulsed electrochemical deposition onto high surface area carbon supports. The resulting Pd31Bi12 nanoparticles displays a 7× enhancement of the mass activity relative to Pt/C and a 4× enhancement relative to Pd/C for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). The high performance of Pd31Bi12 nanoparticles is demonstrated to arise from reduced oxygen binding caused by alloying of Pd with Bi. The isolation of Pd-sites from each other facilitate methanol tolerant ORR behavior.