One-step pyrolysis conversion of glucose and urea into melanoidin for highly efficient photocatalytic H2O2 production

Photocatalytic generation of hydrogen peroxide from water and dioxygen without organic electron donor becomes an emerging strategy and research focus to convert solar energy into green chemicals. However, previously reported photocatalysts have suffered from low efficiency, high cost, and complex synthesis procedure. In this study, we report a melanoidin (ME) composed of furan-pyrrole units by one-step pyrolysis of glucose with urea. The π-conjugated donor (furan)-acceptor (pyrrole) structure enhances the separation of photocarriers and broadens the photo-absorption range. The prepared ME catalyst demonstrates outstanding H2O2 production performance with high efficiency (330 μM g−1h−1) without any sacrificial agent or O2 aeration under visible light. Moreover, melanoidins synthesized using different precursors demonstrate high H2O2 production efficiency as well, indicating the universality of the catalyst synthesis strategy. This is the first report of melanoidin catalysts in photocatalytic H2O2 generation, which presents new insights in metal-free catalyst in highly efficient photocatalytic H2O2 production.