Nickel foam modified by various electron mediators is an ideal non-noble metal anode for direct glucose alkaline fuel cell. However, high cost, low stability, and toxicity of electron mediators largely hamper their practical application. Herein, we demonstrated a one-step electrodeposition method to produce high-performance nickel foam electrode decorated with reduced graphene oxides and nickel oxides. The structure and morphology of the resulting 3D graphene-nickel oxide nanocomposites were characterized by UV-Vis, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. Furthermore, a composite anode was prepared by rolling an activated carbon layer on the fabricated nickel foam electrode. At ambient temperature, the fuel cell equipped with the composite anode exhibited excellent performance with a high peak power density of 13.48 W m(-2) under the condition of 1 M glucose, 3 M KOH, which was 39.30% higher than that of the bare activated carbon anode cell. In particular, electrochemical measurements demonstrated the high performance of the nanocomposite modified activated carbon anode was likely attributed to the synergistic effect of high conductivity of graphene and the catalytic activity of trivalent nickel towards glucose oxidation. (C) 2017 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.