| Summary: | This thesis presents a facile and simple stepwise electroless deposition method for the
synthesis of palladium nanoparticles for fuel cell application. The palladium
nanoparticles synthesized by the proposed method exhibited high specific and mass
activity for both oxygen reduction reaction and formic acid oxidation compared to
commercial platinum and palladium loaded carbon. In particular, the amorphous
palladium-phosphorus nanoparticles exhibited the highest specific and mass activity
reported in literature so far. For oxygen reduction reaction, the palladium-phosphorus
nanoparticles had a specific and mass activity of 6.85 mA cm-2 and 2.21 mA µg-1
respectively which were 4.5 and 2.6 times greater than previously reported values.
Furthermore for formic acid oxidation, the palladium-phosphorus nanoparticles had a
specific and mass activity of 5.7 mA cm-2 and 2.9 mA µg-1 respectively which were
also higher than any previously reported literature values. The palladium nanoparticles
where also shown to be more durable than commercial platinum and palladium loaded
carbon. Furthermore, the palladium nanoparticles synthesized by the proposed method
were also demonstrated to be industrial applicable. Lastly, the proposed synthesis
method was also implemented in coating carbon nanotubes with palladium
nanoparticles to make a palladium nanoparticles-carbon nanotubes composite. This
palladium nanoparticles-carbon nanotubes composite was shown to be able to increase
the catalytic and mass activity of bilirubin oxidase in oxygen reduction reaction
compared to carbon nanotubes alone. Furthermore, this palladium nanoparticles-
carbon nanotubes composite was also demonstrated to be able to increase the electron
transfer rate between the bilirubin oxidase and the electrode (99.2 s-1 to 169.4 s-1).
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