Abstract
X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) have been conducted on a new fuel cell electrocatalytic material based on a highly porous carbonized polyacrylonitrile (PAN) microcellular foam with very low platinum loading (∼13 to 
). TEM images of this material clearly show the existence of nanometer size platinum particles which are homogeneously distributed in the highly porous carbonized PAN matrix. An XPS study of Pt‐loaded PAN indicates that C 1s, O 1s, and N 1s peaks shift to lower binding energies, compared to virgin PAN. It was concluded that special metal‐support interaction exists, through the formation of a charge‐transfer complex between platinum and pyridine‐type nitrogen atoms of PAN support. This interaction leads to the enhancement of the catalytic activity, and the improvement of the long‐time stability of this electrocatalyst.