Effect of TiB₂ Pretreatment on Pt/TiB₂ Catalyst Performance

Highlights: • We pretreated Titanium diboride by different acids and alkali. • We synthesis the Pt/as-pretreated TiB₂ catalysts by a colloid route. • We investigated the effects of TiB₂ Pretreatment on Pt/TiB₂ Catalyst Performance. • The BET surface area and defects on the surface have a close relationship with the deposition of Pt nanoparticles. - Abstract: Carbon support corrosion of traditional Pt/C catalyst is one of the major contributors causing poor durability of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC). Titanium diboride (TiB₂) has high electrical conductivity and considerable chemical stability, which making it as a good candidate for catalyst support in PEMFC. In this work, TiB₂ was pretreated by different acid and alkali. The as-obtained samples were characterized by Ex-situ microscopy (ESM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The pore size distribution (PSD) was analyzed by using DFT method. The PSD shows distinct volume in mesopore regions (less than 50 nm). The TiB2 pretreated by H₂O₂ shows the biggest BET surface area of 57 m² g⁻¹ and its PSD focus on mesoporous (1.5-8 nm) region, which resulted to high dispersion and better loading of Pt particles. The Hydrogen oxidization reaction (HOR) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity was characterized by Rotating Disk Electrode (RDE). The Pt/TiB₂ prepared by H₂O₂-pretreated TiB₂ using the colloidal method showed better half-cell electrochemical performance. Facile synthetic for the development of Pt/TiB₂ catalysts was developed