Platinum-decorated three dimensional titanium copper nitride architectures with durable methanol oxidation reaction activity

The development of highly effective and robust electrocatalysts is an imperative requirement for the commercialization of direct methanol fuel cells. In this work, three dimensional, porous and urchin-like titanium copper nitride architectures is explored and implemented as the Pt support. The methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) performance of the obtained electrocatalyst shows a specific and mass activity of 1.46 mAcm(-2) and 0.84 Amg(Pt)(-1), respectively, which are both more than 3 times higher compared with the commercial Pt/C catalyst. Notably, the novel catalyst also exhibits high stability, and a much slower performance decay compared with the benchmarked Pt/C with the same durability testing procedures. The comprehensive data confirms that the new type catalyst possesses a high charge transfer during the MOR process, and the synergistic effects between anchored Pt and the support mainly contributes to the high stability. This work provides a strategic method for designing effective MOR electrocatalyst with desirable stability. (C) 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.