Synthesis and characterization of carbon riveted Pt/MWCNTs@TiO2-TiC catalyst with high durability for PEMFCs application

摘要

Pt/TiC, Pt/TiO2-TiC, and Pt/MWCNTs@TiO2-TiC catalysts have been synthesized by the microwave-assisted polyol process. Moreover, carbon riveted Pt/MWCNTs@TiO2-TiC catalyst based on in situ carbonization of glucose has also been prepared. X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive analysis of X-ray, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, cyclic voltammograms, and accelerated potential cycling tests have been used to characterize the catalysts. Experimental results show that both of the activity and stability of Pt/TiC catalyst cannot meet the requirements of proton exchange membrane fuel cells. In comparison with Pt/TiC, Pt/TiO2-TiC catalyst exhibits lower activity due to poor conductivity of TiO2 and higher stability ascribed to strong metal-support interaction (SMSI) between Pt and TiO2. However, compared with Pt/TiC, Pt/MWCNTs@TiO2-TiC catalyst exhibits both higher activity and stability because of high electrical conductivity of the mixed support and SMSI between Pt nanopar-ticles and nanocapsule composite MWCNTs@TiO2. Furthermore, the measurement results show that carbon riveted Pt/MWCNTs@TiO2-TiC catalyst with similar activity to the Pt/C and Pt/TiO2-C ones possesses 8.5 times stability as high as that of Pt/C and exhibits 4.5 times life-span as long as that of carbon riveted Pt/TiO2-C reported in our previous study.