N-doping holey graphene TiO2-Pt composite as efficient electrocatalyst for methanol oxidation

The nitrogen-doped holey graphene oxide/TiO2 (TiO2-NHGO) composite is synthesized as catalyst support for Pt catalyst. The resulting catalyst, Pt-TiO2-rNHGO, shows increased activity and stability for methanol electrooxidation than the Pt-rGO, Pt-rHGO and Pt-rNHGO catalysts. The enhancement is owing to combinatory effect of nanoholes in the graphene plane which provide more active sites and efficient mass transport, well-distributed N-doping and the uniformly distribution of TiO2 NPs on NHGO nanosheets which facilitate to form more uniformly dispersed Pt NPs. In addition, the strong interactions among Pt, TiO2 and NHGO also contribute to enhance the performance of catalyst for methanol oxidation.