Pyrolyzed titanium dioxide/polyaniline as an efficient non-noble metal electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction reaction

Abstract To overcome the prohibitive cost and poor durability of conventional Pt-based catalysts, TiO 2 /C was prepared by pyrolyzing a novel titanium dioxide/polyaniline (TiO 2 /PANI) composite. The prepared catalysts were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, cyclic voltammetry (CV), and linear sweep voltammetry. Interaction between PANI and TiO 2 was found to inhibit the aggregation of TiO 2 and its transformation from anatase to rutile. The catalytic activity of the TiO 2 /C first increased with increasing PANI content and then decreased; the optimum was achieved when the PANI/TiO 2 mass ratio was 35/100. CV and i – t curves showed that the prepared composite has a good catalytic stability.