Fine Chemicals Prepared by Bamboo Lignin Degradation through Electrocatalytic Redox between Cu Cathode and Pb/PbO 2 Anode in Alkali Solution

Abstract Electrochemical degradation of bamboo lignin through electrocatalytic redox between Cu cathode and Pb/PbO 2 anode in sodium hydroxide solution was investigated in this work. Electrocatalytic performance of the electrode system was analyzed by cyclic voltammetry and cathodic polarization to validate that Cu and Pb/PbO 2 electrodes had a great ability of electrochemical oxidation and electrocatalytic hydrogenation (ECH) in lignin alkali solution. Through the electrocatalytic redox in the process, 24 kinds of products were detected by gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry (GC‐MS) and three of them (vanillin, syringaldehyde and p ‐coumaric acid) were detected with high yields by gas chromatograph (GC) with internal standard method. Effects of operating parameters, i. e., lignin concentration, current density and temperature, were also investigated to find the optimum degradation conditions at which the maximum yields of vanillin, syringaldehyde and p ‐coumaric acid could be obtained.