Fig. 1: Cryo-ET workflow and analyses on Nafion–LSC–platinum aggregates.
From: Three-dimensional nanoimaging of fuel cell catalyst layers
a, Schematic demonstrating electron tomography acquisition. Aggregates are dispersed on a grid and imaged over >70 angles in 2° increments. b, Representative projections acquired during the tilt series. Scale bar, 50 nm. c, Average beam-induced degradation measured from thickness loss of ionomer layers imaged at 98 K. Data points are the mean, whereas the shaded area represents 1 s.d. (N = 11). d,e, Multi-orthoslices view (d) and representative tomograms (e) of a 0.7 w/w Nafion/LSC with 8.7 wt% platinum on carbon (sample LSC7 in Supplementary Table 1). Scale bar, 50 nm; scale cube, 203 nm3. A line profile of the grey levels is plotted along the orange dashed arrow in e to point out the different features. Shaded areas are provided as guides to identify regions that correspond to the ionomer phase (blue), carbon shells (dark grey) and carbon hollow cores (light grey). f,g, Segmentation results from the same aggregate (f) and corresponding surface rendered view (g). h, Quantitative analysis of the carbon coverage and effective I/C w/w ratio in aggregates from the catalyst layers prepared with different ionomer content (samples LSC3, LSC7 and LSC12 in Supplementary Table 1).
