Fabrication of titanium nitride nanoparticles onto carbon nanotubes by atomic layer deposition for utilization as Pt electrocatalyst supports

Because of its good stability and conductivity,titanium nitride(TiN)is considered to be a very promising alternative support for Pt catalyst;however,the preparation of TiN supports is still challenging.In this work,atomic layer deposition was facilely adopted to fabricate TiN nanoparticles onto carbon nanotubes(CNTs),and then the prepared TiN/CNTs hybrid was used as a support of Pt catalyst.The resulting TiN/CNTs-supported Pt nanoparticles(Pt@TiN/CNTs)nanocomposite showed higher catalytic activity and long-term stability toward the oxygen reduction reaction than the commercial Pt/C,which should be due to the high conductivity and high stability of TiN support,as well as the favorable Pt-TiN strong interaction.