Fabrication of Macroporous/Mesoporous Titanium Nitride Structure and Its Application as Catalyst Support for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell

A macroporous/mesoporous structure of titanium nitride (TiN) was fabricated on carbon paper via a sol–gel method in combination with phase separation and nitridation. The surface area and pore size of TiN were tuned by different concentrations of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) in the sol. Pt nanoparticles were then uniformly deposited on TiN by atomic layer deposition to form a Pt@TiN@carbon paper electrode for application in a proton exchange membrane fuel cell. The performance of membrane electrode assembly (MEA) increased with an increase in the content of PVP when the homemade electrode was used as the anode or cathode due to the increased surface area of TiN and the controllable amount of Pt loading. The MEAs prepared by using homemade electrodes as either anode or cathode showed higher catalyst-mass specific power densities than that of the commercial E-Tek electrode. Furthermore, the MEAs using homemade electrodes for both anode and cathode also showed higher catalyst-mass specific power density than those of MEAs using commercial E-Tek electrodes and other previously reported studies.