Facile electrochemical synthesis of palladium nanoparticle catalyst for oxygen reduction reaction

Platinum (Pt) nanoparticles are the widely used electro-catalyst due to its high catalytic activity but platinum is also highly expensive. Development of new non-platinum catalyst that matches the catalytic capability of platinum has become a hot topic in electrochemistry but most of the reported deposition methods require very long hours. This project reports a new simple and quick electro-less deposition of palladium (Pd) nanoparticles on the surface of electrode. The electrochemical and physical properties of the prepared electrocatalysts were investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronoamperometry (CA), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), electron diffraction and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The results have shown that palladium-phosphorus nanoparticles (nano-PdP) deposited on glassy carbon electrode (GCE) exhibits higher catalytic activity compared to palladium bulk electrode. The deposition method was further used to investigate the effect of graphene and other bimetallic configuration with Pd nanoparticles.Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering