Two palladium/carbon nanofibers modified glassy carbon electrodes, Pd/CNFs/GC-C and Pd/CNFs/GC-E, are fabricated by the conventional powder type method and by the electrophoretic deposition in conjunction with pulse electrodeposition method, respectively. Field emission scanning electron microscopy and high resolution transmission electron microscopy reveal that Pd particles are uniformly dispersed on the two electrodes and X-ray diffraction shows the average Pd particle size of the Pd/CNFs/GC-E electrode is slightly larger than that of the Pd/CNFs/GC-C electrode. Cyclic voltammetric analysis shows that the electrocatalytic activity of Pd/CNFs/GC-E electrode is better than that of Pd/CNFs/GC-C electrode for ethanol oxidation in alkaline media, although the latter has higher Pd loading than the former. This is believed to be due to the higher utilization of Pd catalyst on Pd/CNFs/GC-E electrode than on Pd/CNFs/GC-C electrode, which is confirmed by the electrochemically active surface area measurements. In addition, chronopotentiometric analysis shows the long-term operation stability of Pd/CNFs/GC-E electrode is better than that of Pd/CNFs/GC-C electrode. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.