Conductive Metal Oxide-Based Fuel Cell Catalyst Supports Prepared by Doping TiO₂ with Si: Understanding the Role of Si Content

Abstract

We report the synthesis of a Ti3O5-Si (TOS) conductive metal oxide fuel cell catalyst support. TOS is prepared by doping TiO2 with Si, endowing the resultant material with enhanced electronic conductivity and durability. Support with various amounts of dopant were prepared and a 15-20 wt% Si was determined to be optimal. Intensive electrochemical durability testing shows that the TOS supports are highly stable making them highly suitable for use as a fuel cell catalyst support.

Enhancement of Catalytic Activity and Durability of Pt Nanoparticle through Strong Chemical Interaction with Electrically Conductive Support of Magnéli Phase Titanium Oxide

“…To alleviate the negative effects of the amorphous carbon deterioration, corrosion-resistant carbon supports; CNT [ 7 , 8 ], CNF [ 9 ], and graphene [ 10 , 11 ], heteroatom doped carbon [ 12 ] and also metal oxide supports have been introduced in the literature [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ]. Among varied metal oxides [ 19 , 20 , 21 ], TiO 2 draws prominent attention because of high chemical-durability and good corrosion-resistance under PEFCs operation. In addition, the hypo d-electron character of TiO 2 enables its interaction with Pt, known as a strong metal support interaction (SMSI), thus changing the catalytic activity of the noble metal [ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ].…”