Characterization and sensing property studies of the Pt | Nafion electrode prepared by the chemical reduction method

A novel electrochemical hydrogen sensor which consists of a solid electrolyte polymer (SEP) and catalytic active electrode operating at room temperature was fabricated and investigated. Nafion is utilized as polymer proton conducting membrane onto which a catalytic electrode was deposited by anin-situ impregnation reduction (I-R) technique. In this work, Pt was selected as active catalyst for hydrogen oxidation and the deposition conditions were modified to optimise the parameters for application in hydrogen sensors and to improve the metal utilization so that the electrode loading could be reduced without loss of electrochemical performance. The hydrogen sensing characteristics with air as reference gas are reported. A maximum sensitivity of about 0.01 µA cm^?2 ppm^?1 was obtained. The response time was observed to be in the range of 10–50 seconds. The experimental results show that long term sensor stability exists at room temperature. The thin Pt films were characterized by XRD, infrared spectroscopy, optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and EDAX.