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Synthesis of highly dispersed Pd nanoparticles with high activity for formic acid electro-oxidation

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Abstract

To obtain highly dispersed and active Pd/C catalysts for formic acid electro-oxidation (FAEO), carbon supported Pd nanoparticles were prepared by three different synthesis methods. The first Pd deposition technique went through the ethylene glycol (EG)-assisted sodium borohydride (NaBH4) reduction process (Pd/C-EG-NaBH4). The second method was the polyol process (Pd/C-EG). The third method was the general NaBfLt reduction process (Pd/C-NaBH4). The results of x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) show that the Pd particles on carbon black prepared by the first method have the smallest average size of 3.5 nm with a narrow size distribution. Cyclic voltammetry was used to characterize the electrochemical performance. The peak current density (mass activity) of the Pd/C-EG-NaBH4 for FAEO is 1742 mA/mgPd, which is 1.45 times higher than that of Pd/C-EG and 1.48 times higher than that of Pd/C-NaBH4. Moreover, the experimental results show that the first method has no dependence on the pH value of the synthesis procedure, while the other two methods in the literature are greatly affected by the pH value.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education (Grant No. 20110181110003) and Chengdu Natural Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 10GGYB380GX-023 and 10GGYB828GX-023), Collaborative innovation fund by China Academy of Engineering Physics and Sichuan University (Grant No XTCX2011001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China

    Jinwei Chen, Gang Wang, Xueqin Wang, Chunping Jiang, Shifu Zhu & Ruilin Wang

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  1. Jinwei Chen
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  2. Gang Wang
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  3. Xueqin Wang
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  4. Chunping Jiang
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  5. Shifu Zhu
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  6. Ruilin Wang
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Correspondence to Ruilin Wang.

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Chen, J., Wang, G., Wang, X. et al. Synthesis of highly dispersed Pd nanoparticles with high activity for formic acid electro-oxidation. Journal of Materials Research 28, 1553–1558 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2013.137

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