Abstract

Fuel cells are a key new green technology that have applications in both transport and portable power generation. Carbon supported platinum (Pt) is used as an anode and cathode electrocatalyst in low-temperature fuel cells fuelled with hydrogen or low molecular weight alcohols. The cost of Pt and the limited world supply are significant barriers to the widespread use of these types of fuel cells. Comparatively palladium has a three times higher abundance in the Earth's crust. Here a facile, low temperature and scalable synthetic route towards 3D nanostructured palladium (Pd) employing electrochemical templating from inverse lyotropic lipid phases is presented. The obtained single diamond morphology Pd nanostructures exhibited excellent catalytic activity and stability towards methanol, ethanol and glycerol oxidation compared to commercial Pd black and the nanostructure was verified by small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), scanning tunneling electron microscopy (STEM) as well as by cyclic voltammetry (CV).