A Facile Diethylene Glycol Reduction Method for the Synthesis of Ultrafine Pd/C Electrocatalyst with High Electrocatalytic Activity for Methanol Oxidation

The high-quality carbon supported Pd nanoparticles (Pd/C) composites have wide applications in catalysis. In this work, we demonstrate an efficient diethylene glycol (DEG) reduction method for the synthesis of a Pd/C catalyst with high dispersion and small particle size. During the synthesis, no surfactants and halogen ions are introduced in the reaction system, and DEG efficiently acts as solvent and reducing agent, which results in a “clean” Pd surface. Meanwhile, compared to the classic ethylene glycol (EG) reduction method, the present DEG reduction method can produce the high-quality Pd/C composites. As a result, the as-prepared Pd/C electrocatalyst exhibits a large electrochemical active surface area and good electrocatalytic performance for the methanol oxidation reaction in an alkaline media, due to the high dispersion and small particle size. This result indicates the as-prepared Pd/C electrocatalyst has potential applications in alkaline direct methanol fuel cells.