One-pot synthesis of chain-like palladium nanocubes and their enhanced electrocatalytic activity for fuel-cell applications

Abstract

A simple approach has been developed for the synthesis of anisotropic cubic chain-like Pd nanostructures in an aqueous medium. The cubic chain-like Pd nanostructures show better performance toward oxidation of formic acid and methanol. The cubic chain-like Pd nanostructures show ~11.5 times more activity on the basis of an equivalent noble metal mass for the formic acid and methanol than the spherical shaped Pd nanoparticles and commercial Pd/C catalysts. Further, the superior electrocatalytic performance of the present anisotropic cubic chain-like Pd nanostructures toward the oxidation of alcohols makes them excellent candidates as high performance multipurpose catalysts for direct formic acid fuel cells (DFAFC), direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC), direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFC), respectively.