REMOTE PLASMA CHEMICAL VAPOUR DEPOSITION FOR GAS DIFFUSION LAYER AND PROTON EXCHANGE MEMBRANE SYNTHESIS FOR FUEL CELLS

Climate change due to the increase in GHG emissions and energy crisis due to scarcity of fossil fuel availability are an ever growing issue for the planet and countries. The decarbonization and the sustainability of the energy sector is one of the top priority to achieve a resilient system. Hydrogen has been considered for decades to be used as an alternative for fossil fuel and now is the time of development for an hydrogen based economy. Fuel cells are devices that convert the hydrogen chemical energy into electrical energy and is one the main component considered for the hydrogen economy. However, much is yet to be achieved to make their manufacturing as cheap and as efficient as possible. Chemical vapour deposition (CVD) is a technique used to synthesize solid materials from gaseous precursors which has the advantages, over wet chemistry, to reduce wastes of production, to be cheap, to make pure solid materials and to be easily scalable. In this thesis we investigated the possibility to use CVD to produce two major components of fuel cells, namely the gas diffusion layer and the proton exchange membrane. The results were highly promising regarding the elaboration of gas diffusion layers and a CVD prototype was assembled to make the highly complex copolymerization of proton exchange membrane a reality with promising initial results.