Synthesis and performance of palladium-based catalysts for methanol and ethanol oxidation in alkaline fuel cells

• The Pd/SnO2–TiO2/MWCNT catalyst is synthesized for DMFCs and DEFCs.
• Sn(II) could significantly improve the dispersion of the Pd nanoparticles on TiO2.
• The possible synergetic effect of Pd and SnO2 for alcohol oxidation is proposed.
• Addition of SnO2 has strong promoting effect on catalyst activity and CO tolerance.

Pd/tin oxide-titanium dioxide/multiwalled carbon nanotubes (Pd/SnO2–TiO2/MWCNT) have been synthesized according to a facile and controllable in situ chemical method and their performances in methanol and ethanol oxidation reactions evaluated. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses revealed the beneficial effects of the SnO2 component in the Pd/SnO2–TiO2/MWCNT, indicating that the metallic-state Pd nanoparticles were uniformly dispersed onto the SnO2–TiO2 precursor anchored onto the MWCNT. Electrochemical characterization techniques, including cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronoamperometry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements were used to analyze the electrochemical performance of the Pd/SnO2–TiO2/MWCNT relative to Pd/MWCNT. The results revealed that the Pd/SnO2–TiO2/MWCNT provided excellent and superior levels of performance in terms of their electrocatalytic activity, electrochemical active surface (EAS), carbon monoxide (CO) tolerance and stability for both methanol and ethanol oxidation in alkaline solution.

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