Abstract
The durability of catalysts in fuel cells is a longstanding issue that needs to be resolved. Catalyst stability of the fuel cell has always been a problem, studies are underway to address them. Herein, to address this issue, we synthesize a hybrid structure consisting of SP carbon (SP) as the graphitic carbon and TiO2 as the metal oxide using a microwave method for use as a support for Pt nanoparticles. Anatase TiO2 and Pt nanoparticles with sizes of ~5 and 3.5 ± 1.4 nm, respectively, are uniformly dispersed on a modified graphitic SP carbon support (Pt-TiO2-SP). This supported Pt catalyst exhibits significantly improves durability in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Furthermore, the Pt-TiO2-SP carbon hybrid catalyst manifests superior electrocatalytic stability and higher onset potential in ORR than those exhibited by Pt-SP carbon without TiO2. Pt-TiO2-SP exhibits an activity loss of less than 68 mV after 5000 electrochemical cycles, whereas an activity loss of ~100 mV is observed for Pt-SP carbon in a stability test. These results suggest that the strong metal–support interaction in TiO2-supported Pt catalyst significantly enhances the activity of Pt nanocatalyst.
Highlights
To prevent the corrosion of carbon for Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), the hybrid TiO2 -SP structure comprised by graphitic SP carbon and TiO2 was synthesized using a microwave-assisted method
The highangle annular dark-field-scanning transmission electron microscopy (TEM) (HAADF-STEM) image in Figure 1d shows metal nanoparticles and the corresponding energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) mapping images in Figure 1e–h shows the distribution of TiO2 in the carbon support
The results reveal that nano-sized TiO2 particles are uniformly distributed on the SP carbon surface, suggesting that the TiO2 -SP hybrid was effectively produced by the simple microwave method, and consists of TiO2 nanoparticles uniformly deposited on SP carbon
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) have attracted considerable attention due to their high power density, low working temperature, and energy conversion efficiency. Non-metal catalysts have recently been developed for PEMFCs, Pt remains an attractive candidate catalyst due to its considerable catalytic activity in both the anodic and cathodic reactions [1,2]. The application of Pt as a catalyst faces two major obstacles, namely degradation and low durability [3,4,5]. The redeposition of Pt catalyst particles and corrosion of the support result in the degradation of PEMFC performance because the catalytic activity is directly proportional to the available surface area of the
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