Towards hierarchical porous titanium nitride as catalyst support for fuel cells
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To promote widespread adoption of hydrogen fuel cells, it is essential to enhance their durability. The current catalyst support, carbon black, is not stable during fuel cell operation, resulting in performance decline. This study focuses on exploring titanium nitride (TiN) as an alternative catalyst support material. TiN exhibits high conductivity and electrochemical stability. However, there are still several challenges to synthesize TiN that fulfills all requirements before it becomes the support of choice for fuel cell applications. In this study, a synthesis method using silica as a hard template mixed with titanium isopropoxide (TTIP) was employed to create porous TiO2 materials. These materials were then converted into hierarchical porous bulk TiN using the ammonolysis method. Various synthesis parameters, such as the precursor-to-template ratio, calcination temperature, nitridation temperature, and dwell time, were investigated to optimize the structure and composition of the samples. The optimized samples exhibited higher surface area and improved conductivity compared to commercially available TiN and carbon black. Furthermore, this study explores the use of the hypergolic reaction as a time-saving and energy-efficient method for synthesis of TiN. The results showed that the hypergolic reaction yielded samples with comparable or improved pore structure and electrical performance to those synthesized by conventional means, demonstrating its potential as a promising approach for material synthesis.