Chinese Journal of Catalysis ›› 2015, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (3): 414-424.DOI: 10.1016/S1872-2067(14)60223-0

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Pyrolyzed titanium dioxide/polyaniline as an efficient non-noble metal electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction

Zhijuan Zoua, Hao Chenga, Jingyu Wanga,b, Xijiang Hana   

  1. a Department of Chemistry, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, Heilongjiang, China;
    b Key Laboratory for Large-Format Battery Materials and System (Ministry of Education), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China
  • Received:2014-07-13 Revised:2014-09-04 Online:2015-02-14 Published:2015-02-14
  • Supported by:

    This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21001037, 21071037, and 91122002), the Special Fund for Harbin Technological Innovation Talent (2013RFLXJ011), and the Research Fund for Talent Introduction of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (2014036).

Abstract:

To overcome the prohibitive cost and poor durability of conventional Pt-based catalysts, TiO2/C was prepared by pyrolyzing a novel titanium dioxide/polyaniline (TiO2/PANI) composite. The prepared catalysts were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, cyclic voltammetry (CV), and linear sweep voltammetry. Interaction between PANI and TiO2 was found to inhibit the aggregation of TiO2 and its transformation from anatase to rutile. The catalytic activity of the TiO2/C first increased with increasing PANI content and then decreased; the optimum was achieved when the PANI/TiO2 mass ratio was 35/100. CV and i-t curves showed that the prepared composite has a good catalytic stability.

Key words: Polyaniline, Titania, Pyrolyzation, Cathode catalyst, Oxygen reduction reaction