Promoting electrocatalytic alcohols oxidation coupled with H2 production via ligand intercalation strategy

Electrochemical alcohol oxidation, the alternate of oxygen evolution reaction, has been recognized as an effective way to produce value-added chemicals coupled with H2 production. However, the current researches still suffer from the low reaction rate and Faradaic efficiency (FE) that limits the overall efficiency. Herein, we report a ligand intercalation strategy to enhance the current density of alcohol electrooxidation by intercalating sodium dodecyl sulfonate (SDS) in the interlayer of Co(OH)2 catalyst (Co(OH)2-SDS). For instance, the Co(OH)2-SDS shows obviously enhanced current density for glycerol electrooxidation than that of pure Co(OH)2. The corresponding glycerol conversion rate and H2 production rate reach 0.35 mmol·cm−2·h−1 and 9.1 mL·cm−2·h−1 at 1.42 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode, which are 2.2- and 1.9-fold higher than that of Co(OH)2. The yield of formate reaches 86.6% with selectivity of 95.3% at high glycerol conversion of 95.1% (with FE of 83.3% for glycerol oxidation). The Co(OH)2-SDS is demonstrated efficient for different alcohols with enhanced performance. We confirmed that the intercalation of SDS in Co(OH)2 can promote the generation and exposure of CoOOH reactive sites, and also facilitate the adsorption of alcohol, thus enabling high reaction rate.