Titanium dioxide encapsulated in nitrogen-doped carbon enhances the activity and durability of platinum catalyst for Methanol electro-oxidation reaction

• TiO2@NCX was synthesized by pyrolysising polypyrrole and TiO2 composite.
• Pt/TiO2@NCX catalysts exhibit high activity and stability towards MOR.
• The high activity in MOR was due to the bifunctional mechanism and electronic effect.

The development of advanced catalyst supports is a promising route to obtain active and durable electrocatalysts for methanol electro-oxidation reaction. In the current work, nitrogen-doped carbon encapsulated titanium dioxide composite (TiO2@NCX) is constructed and serves as support material for the Pt catalyst. The TiO2@NCX support is fabricated by the procedure of an in-situ polymerization and subsequent pyrolysis. The synthesized Pt/TiO2@NCX catalysts show enhanced electrocatalytic performance towards methanol electro-oxidation compared with the commercial Pt/C catalyst. The enhancement can be ascribed to combinatory effect of N-doped carbon and TiO2, in which the tolerance to CO-poisoning and the intrinsic kinetics of methanol oxidation reaction are simultaneously improved by the bifunctional mechanism and the electronic effect. As a result, the as-developed TiO2@NCX composite is a promising catalyst support material for the application in fuel cell.

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