A fuel cell catalyst support based on doped titanium suboxides with enhanced conductivity, durability and fuel cell performance

An entirely carbon-free multifunctional titanium suboxide doped with two metals has been developed as a novel fuel cell catalyst support. The co-functional Ti3O5Mo0.2Si0.4 (TOMS) support displays remarkably high electronic conductivity for a metal oxide. Pt/TOMS catalysts were prepared and found to display excellent activity towards the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). This enhanced activity is attributed to a strong electronic interaction between the Pt nanoparticles and the TOMS support. Furthermore, this Pt/TOMS catalyst displays extraordinary durability in accelerated stress tests, losing only than 10% of its activity surface over the 5000 cycle accelerated stress test. Fuel cell performance testing of the Pt/TOMS catalyst shows that practical fuel cell devices can be readily fabricated and achieve high performance, exceeding that of commercial catalysts. Thus, Pt/TOMS is proposed has the potential to be a viable carbon-free support that could be deployed in PEMFC technology in the near-term solution.