Recent Progress of Palladium-Based Electrocatalysts for the Formic Acid Oxidation Reaction

Direct formic acid fuel cells (DFAFCs) are considered as one of the promising energy conversion devices. In recent years, Pd-based nanomaterials have attracted widespread attention for the anodic formic acid oxidation reaction (FAOR) due to high catalytic activity and antipoisoning capability. Among large amounts of reports, several factors contribute to the FAOR performance concurrently. In this review, the effects which influence the catalytic activity toward the FAOR are concluded and the deactivation mechanisms are compared. Besides, the strategies for removal/restriction of adsorbed CO species, which poison the active sites, are discussed. Several strategies, including the morphology tailoring, alloying with other elements, and optimizing the support, are presented comprehensively. Finally, we summarize these works and provide some suggestions for the future work on the FAOR catalysts.