In situ deposition of Pd nanoparticles on carbon paper and their electroactivity for ethanol oxidation

In this work, Pd and PdNi nanostructured particles have been deposited on the carbon paper (CP) by a novel and simple method of in situ deposition. The prepared catalysts were named as Pd-situ/CP, PdNi-situ/CP. The as-formed Pd and Pd-Ni nanoparticles are well dispersed with the sizes of 15∼24 nm for Pd-situ/CP, 8∼11 nm for Pd9Ni1-situ/CP, and 8∼14 nm for Pd8Ni2-situ/CP. Their electroactivity for ethanol oxidation in 1 mol L−1 NaOH solution was investigated with cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The samples fabricated by this in situ deposition method (Pd-situ/CP, Pd9Ni1-situ/CP, and Pd8Ni2-situ/CP) exhibit both higher electroactivity and higher electrocatalytic stability for ethanol oxidation than the Pd/CP obtained by the conventional NaBH4 reduction method. This new method of preparation of catalyst nanoparticles is simple and hardly leads to the loss of catalyst particles due to the omitted filtration step of catalyst particles.