Three-dimensional assembly of building blocks for the fabrication of Pd aerogel as a high performance electrocatalyst toward ethanol oxidation

Abstract

Porous noble metal nanostructures with highly porous and extended surface areas are a long-desired target in both industry and academia. Among them, noble metal aerogels have emerged as state-of-the-art catalysts and these exceptional structures play crucial roles in various applications such as catalysis, sensors, etc. Until now, various methods have been published for the creation of noble metal aerogels, while their development and synthesis suffer from time-consuming multistep procedures. In this paper, we present an efficient method for the creation of porous three-dimensional network of Pd aerogel by a self-assembly process. This method offers several advantages over other methods such as being one-pot synthesis, simplicity and fast. Pd aerogel is synthesized by reducing H2PdCl4 in the presence of sodium carbonate using glyoxylic acid monohydrate as a reductant agent in a short time followed by supercritical drying. The Pd aerogel serves as an anode catalyst for the electrooxidation reaction of ethanol and exhibits superior electrocatalytic activity and durability compared to Pd/C catalyst. We believe that the Pd aerogel synthesized via this method is a promising catalyst for direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs) and will also open large opportunities for other applications.