Tuning OH binding energy enables selective electrochemical oxidation of ethylene to ethylene glycol

There is significant interest in developing efficient electrochemical processes for commodity chemical manufacturing, all directly powered by renewable electricity. A vital chemical is ethylene glycol, with an annual consumption of around 20 million tonnes due to its use as antifreeze and as a polymer precursor. Here we report a one-step electrochemical route at ambient temperature and pressure in aqueous media to the selective partial oxidation of ethylene to ethylene glycol. Tuning of the catalyst OH binding energy was hypothesized to be crucial for facilitating the transfer of OH to *C2H4OH to form ethylene glycol. Computational studies suggested that a gold-doped palladium catalyst could perform this step efficiently, and experimentally we found it to exhibit an approximate 80% Faradaic efficiency to ethylene glycol, retaining its performance for 100 hours of continuous operation. These findings represent a significant advance in the development of selective anodic partial oxidation reactions in aqueous media under mild conditions. Ethylene glycol is a commodity chemical with an annual consumption of 20 million tonnes. Its production generates 1.6 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of ethylene glycol. To reduce these CO2 emissions, the authors report a one-step electrochemical route to selectively convert ethylene to ethylene glycol at ambient temperature and pressure in aqueous media.