Mesoporous g-C3N4 derived nano-titanium nitride modified carbon black as ultra-fine PtRu catalyst support for Methanol electro-oxidation

Titanium nitride (TiN) as catalyst support has a very good application prospect due to its chemical stability, electrical conductivity and the metal-support interaction. But it is difficult to synthesize nano-TiN with the uniform dispersion by a simple method. This paper proposes a novel and easy strategy to address the problem. The mesoporous g-C3N4 has been synthesized and used as both nano-reactor and nitrogen source for the synthesis of nano-TiN evenly dispersed onto Vulcan XC-72. The uniform dispersion of nano-TiN is conducive to depositing and anchoring the PtRu nanoparticles, further increasing the longtime catalytic durability. Moreover, the electronic effect of TiN obviously improves the catalytic activity and the adsorbed CO tolerance ability of PtRu catalysts for methanol oxidation. Compared with the PtRu/C catalyst, the activity of PtRu/C-TiN for methanol oxidation has been increased by 47.3%. Meanwhile, its durability has been improved by 6.5% after 1000 cycles. In addition, this novel and easy method can be generalized to the synthesis of other nano-size nitrides. The applications of nano-size nitrides modified carbon black in other fields are also expected in the future. (C) 2018 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.