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Preparation And Catalytic Activity Of Nanostructured Pd And Au-Pd Thin Films, Cui-Cui Qiu, Jin-Tao Zhang, Fang Tian, Hou-Yi Ma

Journal of Electrochemistry

The nanostructured Pd thin films were directly formed on the glassy carbon electrode(GCE) substrates by using potential cycling method.The as-prepared Pd thin films deposited onto the GCE were able to absorb enough amount of hydrogen in acidic solutions at the cathodic potentials more negative than the hydrogen evolution potential.Moreover,the absorbed hydrogen could be used as the reducing agent to reduce gold(III) ions to Au nanoclusters,thereby forming bimetallic Au-Pd thin films on the GCE substrate.SEM and cyclic voltammetry characterization demonstrated that the Au-Pd thin films display much higher catalytic activity towards the electro-oxidation of ethanol than the pure Pd thin films.