Nitrogen-doped Pt3Co intermetallic compound nanoparticles: A durable oxygen reduction electrocatalyst

Pt-based ordered alloy catalysts have been extensively investigated to improve the catalytic performance for proton exchange membrane fuel cells. Herein, we report N-doped ordered Pt3Co nanoparticles supported on XC-72R carbon (O-Pt3CoN/C) for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Both the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and the energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy elemental mapping analyses confirm the successful N-doping within the Pt3Co intermetallic compound. Consequently, the N-doped catalyst exhibits a significantly higher ORR performance in comparison with Pt3Co and commercial Pt/C catalysts. Importantly, the ORR mass activity of N-doped Pt3Co intermetallic compound is almost 2.4 times of that obtained on commercial Pt/C. Moreover, after accelerated durability test over the potential range of 0.6 to 1.1 V (vs. RHE), ORR activity decay of N-doped Pt3Co/C is only 21.5%, lower than those of ordered Pt3Co and commercial Pt/C catalysts. Thus, N-doping could be utilized as an effective strategy for further improving the ORR performance of Pt-M/C catalysts.