The impending energy and climatic crisis makes it imperative for human society to seek non-fossil based alternative sources for our energy needs. Although many alternative energy technologies are currently being developed, fuel cell technology provides energy solutions, which satisfy a wide range of applications. But the current fuel cell technology is far from its target of large scale commercialization mainly because of its high cost and poor durability. Considerable work has been done in reducing the cost but its durability still needs significant improvement. Of the various materials in a PEM fuel cell, the degradation of electrocatalyst affects its durability the most, leading to performance loss. Carbon black (C) support corrosion plays a significant role in the electrocatalyst degradation and its severe affects due to potential cycling has been identified through my research.

Through my resaerch, I introduce titanium nitride nanoparticles (TiN NP) as alternative catalyst supports replacing carbon black. TiN NP has higher electrical conductivity and corrosion resistance compared to that of C. The physical and electrochemical properties of TiN NP were studied and the Pt/TiN electrocatalyst was synthesized using polyol process. Upon optimizing using DOE, for desired catalyst particle size and activity, Pt/TiN is shown to have higher catalytic performance than conventional Pt/C.

TiN NP are significantly influenced by the electrochemical conditions and show 'active' or 'passive' nature depending on the temperature and acidic concentration; and a temperature dependence model is proposed to understand the active/passive nature of TiN NP. A one-to-one comparison between TiN NP and C electrodes under similar electrochemical conditions show a superior performance of TiN NP as a catalyst support. The durability of the Pt/TiN electrocatalyst is also tested and it agrees well with the proposed model of active/passive nature of the TiN NP. Through theoretical calculation and spectroscopic characterization, the higher catalytic performance of the Pt/TiN electrocatalyst is explained. The degradation mechanism and the dominant pathways are identified for the novel Pt/TiN electrocatalyst. It is shown that, unlike conventional Pt/C, the novel Pt/TiN degrades predominantly via Pt particle agglomeration mechanism due to its higher support to Pt particle ratio.