Pt Nanoparticles Supported on N-Doped Carbon/Mesoporous TiN Particle Composites as Catalysts for the Methanol Oxidation Reaction

Electronic conduction can accelerate charge transfer, and metal–support interactions help improve the ability to resist CO poisoning, which are important features in methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) catalysis. Thus, an effective support that allows the modulation of electronic conduction and metal–support interactions is highly desired for catalyst construction. Herein, we demonstrate an effective catalyst system by coupling Pt nanoparticles (NPs) over N-doped carbon (NC)-modified hollow mesoporous-structured titanium nitride microporous sphere (H-TiN) supports for the MOR, in which NC acts as an important unit that regulates the electronic conduction in the catalyst and as an indispensable subassembly for protecting the hollow structures of H-TiN; in addition, the oxophilic properties of H-TiN and the strong metal–support interaction between Pt NPs and H-TiN endowed excellent CO poisoning resistance. The resulting Pt/H-TiN/NC-1.00 exhibited superior MOR activity with a mass activity of 1346 mA mgPt–1, which is 3.1 times higher than that of the Pt/C catalyst. Moreover, the Pt/H-TiN/NC-1.00 catalyst exhibited excellent antipoisoning ability toward CO in comparison to Pt/C catalysts. Our work provides more insights into optimizing the support for Pt NPs by modulating electronic conduction and metal–support interactions for direct methanol fuel cells with high MOR activity, excellent durability, and good CO tolerance ability.