High surface area tungsten carbide microspheres as effective Pt catalyst support for oxygen reduction reaction

In the present work, the preparation of high surface area (256 m2 g−1) tungsten carbide microspheres (TCMSs) by the aid of a simple hydrothermal method is realized and the performance of the Pt electrocatalyst supported on the as-prepared TCMSs towards the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is investigated. The SEM micrographs indicated that both the synthesized carbon microspheres (CMSs) and TCMSs showed perfect microsphere structure and uniform size. The EDX measurements confirmed that when the C/W mass ratio is ∼2.5/1, tungsten and carbon coexist in the microspheres. Moreover, from the XRD results, it can be found that both W2C and WC are detected and W2C exists as the main phase. It was found that the Pt particles are uniformly dispersed on the supports, while the corresponding average particle size is ∼3.7, 4.1 and 4.3 nm for Pt/C, Pt/CMSs and Pt/TCMSs, respectively. It was also found that in terms of ORR onset potential and mass activity, the Pt/TCMSs catalyst exhibits superior performance to that of Pt/CMSs and Pt/C, enhancing the ORR catalytic activity by more than 200%. The above behavior could be attributed to its higher electrochemical surface area (ESA), as well as to the synergistic effect between Pt and tungsten carbides.