Low loadings of platinum on transition metal carbides for hydrogen oxidation and evolution reactions in alkaline electrolytes

Abstract

Low-loadings of Pt supported over six transition metal carbide (Pt/TMC) powder catalysts were synthesized and evaluated for hydrogen oxidation and evolution reactions in an alkaline electrolyte. The roughness factor of each Pt/TMC catalyst was different, indicating that the carbide supports affect the dispersion of Pt. Furthermore, when normalized by the corresponding roughness factors, all Pt/TMC catalysts were found to have similar intrinsic activities that were comparable to the state-of-the-art commercial Pt/C electrocatalysts.