A flexible and highly effective paper based gold electrode for sodium borohydride electrocatalysis

•ABNiAu is flexible and binder-free.•ABNiAu owns good stability in alkaline solution.•ABNiAu exhibits high electrocatalytic performance for NaBH4 oxidation.

A binder-free and flexible Au electrode is prepared by spontaneous deposition of Au onto a A4 (A4-paper)-8B (8B pencil)-Ni Film substrate (ABNi) which is assembled by electrodeposition of nanoscale Ni particles on the surface of A4 paper coated by 8B pencil. The morphology and phase structure of the (A4-paper)-8B (8B pencil)-Ni Film-Au (ABNiAu) electrode are characterized by scanning electron microscopy equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer and X-ray diffractometer. The catalytic activity of the ABNiAu electrode for NaBH4 electrooxidation is investigated by means of cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry. The electrode exhibits a high electric conductivity and the activity substance attaches to the surface of paper substrate tightly and does not fall off at all and the nanoscale Ni and NiAu alloy enhance the broken of the BH bond in the BH4−, all of which lead to a high catalytic activity for NaBH4 electrooxidation. The oxidation current density reaches 300 mA cm−2 in 1 mol dm−3 NaOH and 0.1 mol dm−3 NaBH4 at −0.2 V. The exchanged electrons (n) is 6.0 (8.0 in theory), which indicates that the ABNiAu electrode has much higher utilization efficiency of the fuel than our reported LaNi5/Pd (n = 4) electrode.