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To further obtain high catalytic activity and durability of Pt catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), we synthesized a robust Pt-on-ZrC nanocomposite catalyst by taking advantage of atomic layer deposition (ALD) to improve the strong metal–support interactions at the atomic level. X-ray absorption near edge structures (XANES) results show that ALD-Pt/ZrC catalysts show noticeable change in the electronic structure of Pt due to strong interactions with the ZrC support. Using electrochemical cycling to test durability, we found the ALD-Pt/ZrC nanocomposites to be roughly 5-fold and 3-fold more stable than commercial Pt/C and CW-Pt/ZrC (synthesized by a conventional chemical reduction method), respectively. The ALD-Pt/ZrC nanocomposite showed a mass activity of 0.122 A mgPt−1 at 0.9 V (vs. RHE); much higher than those for Pt/C and CW-Pt/ZrC catalysts (0.074 and 0.041 A mgPt−1, respectively). After …