Ethanol electrooxidation on highly active palladium/graphene oxide aerogel catalysts

Abstract In this work, the low-loading (3 wt%) palladium/graphene oxide (Pd/GO) aerogels are facilely prepared via the lyophilisation, vacuum and reduction treatments. The Pd/GO aerogels display enhanced activity and stability in comparison to the commercial Pd/C. The enhancement of electrocatalytic performance can be attributed to the functional groups on the surfaces of the GO support, such as carbonyl and carboxyl groups, which can be tuned to interact with palladium to form active phases for the reaction. In addition, Pd nanoparticles (NPs) remain dispersed in nanoscale on the reacted catalyst.