Lack of highly efficient and stable electrocatalysts for glucose electrooxidation is a bottleneck for the real application of glucose fuel cells and electrochemical sensors. Herein we report the synthesis of the PdAu/C catalyst by an NH3 modified pulse microwave assisted polyol method, which exhibits excellent glucose electrooxidation performance. Both XRD and TEM results indicate that the modified method can significantly lower the particle size of the Pd, Au and PdAu nanoparticles, which can be attributed to the complexing effect of aqueous NH3 with Pd2+ and Au3+ ions. The as-prepared PdAu/C-NH3 shows excellent catalytic activity and high sensitivity toward glucose electrooxidation and it can be considered very promising for the potential application in the development of both glucose fuel cells and glucose sensors. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.