Anchoring Highly Dispersed Pt Electrocatalysts on TiO with Strong Metal-Support Interactions via an Oxygen Vacancy-Assisted Strategy as Durable Catalysts for the Oxygen Reduction Reaction.

Pt electrocatalysts with high activity and durability have still crucial issues for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). In this study, a novel catalyst consisting of Pt nanoparticles (NPs) on TiO/C composites (TiO-V-H/C) with abundant oxygen vacancies (V) is proposed, which is abbreviated as PTO-V-H/C. The introduction of V helps anchor highly dispersed Pt NPs with low loading and strengthen the strong metal-support interaction (SMSI), which benefits to the enhanced ORR catalytic activity. Moreover, the accelerated durability test (ADT) demonstrates the higher retention of ORR activity for PTO-V-H/C. Experimental and theoretical analyses reveal that electronic interactions between Pt NPs and TiO/C composite support give rise to an electron-rich Pt NPs and strong SMSI effect, which is favorable for the electron transfer and stabilization of Pt NPs. More importantly, the assembled PEMFC with PTO-V-H/C shows only 6.9% of decay on maximum power density after 3000 ADT cycles while the performance of Pt/C sharply decreased. This work provides a new insight into the unique vacancy regulation of dispersive Pt on metal oxides for superior ORR performance.