Capability to fabricate high-performance membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) is a key to the commercialization of direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs). This work reports an interface engineering method to introduce a multiscale patterned membrane and a guided metal cracked layer between the catalyst layer and the membrane by the creep-assisted sequential imprinting and simple stretching technique. The MEA with a multiscale patterned membrane, where the nanopatterns covered the whole surface even on the side surface of microstructures, showed improved performance owing to enhanced mass transport by the thinned electrode, effective utilization of the active sites, and increased Pt utilization. To obtain further performance enhancement, we incorporated a guided gold cracked layer into the MEA with the multiscale patterned membrane. The electrochemically inactive thin gold layer acted as a physical barrier for methanol crossover and the guided cracks provided multiple proton pathways. Our interface engineering utility resulted in an enhancement of the device performance by 42.3% compared with that of the reference.

制造高性能膜电极组件（MEA）的能力是直接甲醇燃料电池（DMFC）商业化的关键。这项工作报告了一种界面工程方法，该方法通过蠕变辅助顺序压印和简单拉伸技术在催化剂层和膜之间引入多尺度图案化的膜和引导的金属裂化层。带有多尺度图案化膜的MEA（即使在微结构的侧表面上也覆盖了整个表面）的纳米图案表现出改善的性能，这归因于通过变薄的电极增强了质量传输，有效利用了活性位点并提高了Pt利用率。为了获得进一步的性能增强，我们将带有多级图案化膜的导金裂纹层引入了MEA。电化学上无活性的薄金层充当甲醇越过的物理屏障，引导的裂纹提供了多个质子通道。与参考相比，我们的接口工程实用程序使设备性能提高了42.3％。