electrodes. Operation at critical and near-critical conditions can be advantageous for systems that are limited by reactant solubility with resulting mass-transport limitations. From voltammograms we determined that higher CO 2 pressure up to about 70 atm led to higher current density at a specified overpotential. Because of a reduction in masstransport limitations, the current efficiency for methanol production was also increased. As expected, higher temperature reduced the overpotential at all current densities. Our best result, shown in Table I, was a current efficiency of 40% at 9 mA/cm 2 . This is the highest current efficiency yet reported for methanol at this current-density level.

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Table I, Adhesion strength of copper layer prepared on a glass substrate. Cu thickness Method (l~m) Adh. strength (kg/2 mmC]) Fe-Ni wire AI pull stud ~ Sputtering Glass/Cr/Cu 2.0 10.1 >6.0 b Electroless plating Glass/Cu 0.5 -0 -1.0 ~ Electroless plating Glass/ZnO/Cu 2.0 10.8 >6.0 b Electroless plating Glass/TiOJCu 0.5 -0 -1.0 c a Epoxy coated aluminum pull studs with 2.7 mm~ were used for the adhesion strength tests. These values were converted into kg/2 mmC].b In these tests, the interface between the aluminum pull stud and the deposited copper layer was broken. ~ In these tests, the interface between the deposited copper layer and the glass substrate or TiO~ film was broken.substrate with a smooth surface. In this electroless plating process, the ZnO surface was selectively activated for electroless copper plating in an acidic PdCI2 solution along with the dissolution of ZnO. The strong adhesion strength seems to be achieved by this dissolution which causes the etching of ZnO surface.

Novel multi‐wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) supported Pd–Au catalyst for electrooxidation of formic acid was prepared and compared with a similarly prepared Pd/MWCNTs and with a commercial Pt–Ru/Vulcan catalyst. The catalysts were prepared by a two‐stage polyol method, followed by H2–Ar annealing and were characterised by using X‐ray diffraction, FE‐TEM and EDX. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) was used to test their catalytic activity towards formic acid electrooxidation and accessible metal surface in the catalyst layer. In the case of the precursor of Pd–Au/MWCNTs catalyst (before H2–Ar annealing), subsequent deposition of Pd and Au led to a material of the core‐shell structure, catalytically inactive. Annealing of the core shell Pd–Au/MWCNTs precursor in H2–Ar resulted in the formation of the novel Pd–Au/MWCNTs catalyst. A highly dispersed Pd–Au solid solution (average XRD particle size 4.8 nm) is formed, and the novel catalyst is more active than the Pd/MWCNTs one. Both the Pd–Au/MWCNTs and the Pd/MWCNTs catalysts turned out to be more active than a commercial, highly dispersed Pt–Ru/Vulcan catalyst.