Monolithic Carbon Foam-Supported Pd-Ni Catalysts for Ethanol Electro-Oxidation in Alkaline Media

Abstract

Anion-exchange membrane direct ethanol fuel cells are attractive owing to the fact that: i) the alkaline media speeds up the electro-kinetics of both the ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), ii) low-cost Pd catalyst presents better catalytic activity for the EOR than Pt in alkaline environment, and iii) the ethanol possesses the advantages of high-specific energy and producing from cellulosic biomass. Carbon foam promises to be a better monolithic catalyst support due to its three-dimensional honeycomb-type open cell structure, resulting in the high porosity and the large specific surface area [1]. In this work, the carbon foam-supported PdNi nanocatalysts (PdNi/CF) were synthesized by the layer-reduction method using NaBH4 as a reductant [2], and characterized by different physicochemical methods. The experimental results indicated that the PdNi nanocatalysts were evenly dispersed on the surface of the skeleton of the carbon foam, facilitating the mass and charge transfer. The electrocatalytic activity of PdNi/CF was optimized by testing different Pd/Ni atomic ratios. It has been demonstrated that the electrocatalytic activity of PdNi/CF was higher than that of Pd/CF, suggesting promising application in alkaline direct ethanol fuel cells.