Carbon supported Pt, Pd, and Au nanoparticles (NPs) catalysts with small diameters (2.4-3.5 nm) were prepared through a solution-phase reduction method, and applied as the model catalysts for electro-oxidation of both high-purity glycerol and biodiesel-derived crude glycerol. The half cell investigations showed that Pt/C has the highest activity in the low potential range, which can be further facilitated at elevated temperatures. The anion-exchange membrane fuel cells (AEMFCs) investigations demonstrated no obvious drop in peak power density on Pt/C anode, when the fuel was switched from high-purity glycerol to crude glycerol, indicating a good stability of the Pt/C against poisoning/deactivation from the impurities in crude glycerol. The tests also showed that on all these three model catalysts, a volcano-type relationship exists between the fuel cell performance and crude glycerol concentration at a fixed KOH concentration, while with a given crude glycerol concentration, the performance monotonically increased with the KOH concentration increasing. The highest performances were achieved with 6.0 M KOH + 1.0 M crude glycerol at 80 degrees C, which are 184.2, 93.9, and 50.1 mW cm(-2) on Pt/C, Pd/C, and Au/C anodes, respectively. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.