Preparation and characterization of hybrid Pd/C nanocomposites and their application in electrocatalytic activity

Abstract

An environment-friendly oxidation–reduction method was used to prepare Pd/C hybrid nanocomposites (NCs) using carbon as host and Pd nanoparticles (NPs) as surface loading, and sodium citrate was used as a reducing agent. The structures and morphologies of the Pd/C hybrid NCs were characterized by X-ray diffraction, transmission (high-resolution) electron microscopy (TEM, HRTEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and so on. The results demonstrated that the Pd NPs were deposited on the surface of the C sphere beads, and the Pd NPs were homogeneous and monodispersed. The results also indicated that the diameter of the Pd NPs was 3 ± 0.5 nm and the Pd/C NCs were 197 ± 6.5 nm. In addition, the Pd/C NCs showed improved electrocatalytic activity for formic acid oxidation in comparison with commercial Pd NPs through controlling the surface structures. So, the environment-friendly preparation method provided developmental direction to fabricate all kinds of metal/C hybrid NCs architectures.

Keywords:

• Carbon spheres
• Pd/C
• hybrid structure
• nanocomposite
• electrocatalytic activity

Disclosure statement

There are no conflicts of interest to declare.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Innovation Fund of Jiangsu Vocational College of Electronics and Information (grant no. JSEIYY2020002) and the Key Research and Development Program of Jiangsu Province (grant no. BE2018127).