TiO2 nanolayer coated carbon support for highly durable high-temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell cathode

Carbon corrosion of Pt/C electrocatalyst in the cathode is a critical issue for the practical application of hightemperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (HT-PEMFCs). Herein, we introduce a nanolayer composed of TiO 2 nanoparticles between Pt and carbon support, which not only protects the carbon from corrosion but also forms a strong metal-support interaction between Pt and TiO 2 . The Pt nanoparticles are uniformly dispersed on the prepared C@TiO 2 support (mean size: 2.27 nm). After potential sweeping for 5000 cycles in the acid solution, the electrochemical surface area loss of the homemade Pt/C@TiO 2 is 10.9%, which is approximately half of that of commercial Pt/C (19.1%). In the practical HT-PEMFC single cell, Pt/C@TiO 2 exhibits superior durability than Pt/C as well. After the accelerated durability test, the maximum power density of Pt/C@TiO 2 -MEA decreases by 8.6%, which is significantly lower than that of Pt/C-MEA (23.9%), suggesting a great potential application of Pt/C@TiO 2 in HT-PEMFCs.