Photoelectrochemical Oxidation of Benzylic Alcohol Derivatives on BiVO4/WO3 under Visible Light Irradiation

Abstract The photo‐assisted electrochemical oxidation of benzylic alcohol derivatives was achieved with excellent yields up to 97 % at low applied potential under visible light irradiation (>420 nm) by using a BiVO 4 /WO 3 photoelectrode in aprotic organic media. The faradaic efficiencies for the oxidation of 1‐phenylethyl alcohol was very high (>99 %) in 0.1 M Bu 4 NBF 4 /MeCN. The applied potentials for the oxidation of benzylic alcohols (approximately +0.7 V vs. SHE) were considerably lower than those of the Pt electrodes (approximately +1.9 V vs. SHE). The turnover number of moles of oxidation product per moles of BiVO 4 was approximately 1200.