In situ grown oxygen-vacancy-rich copper oxide nanosheets on a copper foam electrode afford the selective oxidation of alcohols to value-added chemicals
Type
ArticleAuthors
Khan, Mustafa
Hameed, Asima
Samad, Abdus

Mushiana, Talifhani
Abdullah, Muhammad Imran

Akhtar, Asma
Ashraf, Raja Shahid
Zhang, Ning
Pollet, Bruno G.
Schwingenschlögl, Udo

Ma, Mingming

KAUST Department
Applied PhysicsComputational Physics and Materials Science (CPMS)
KAUST Solar Center (KSC)
Material Science and Engineering Program
Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division
Date
2022-09-12Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/681567
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Show full item recordAbstract
Selective oxidation of low-molecular-weight aliphatic alcohols like methanol and ethanol into carboxylates in acid/base hybrid electrolytic cells offers reduced process operating costs for the generation of fuels and value-added chemicals, which is environmentally and economically more desirable than their full oxidation to CO2. Herein, we report the in-situ fabrication of oxygen-vacancies-rich CuO nanosheets on a copper foam (CF) via a simple ultrasonication-assisted acid-etching method. The CuO/CF monolith electrode enables efficient and selective electrooxidation of ethanol and methanol into value-added acetate and formate with ~100% selectivity. First principles calculations reveal that oxygen vacancies in CuO nanosheets efficiently regulate the surface chemistry and electronic structure, provide abundant active sites, and enhance charge transfer that facilitates the adsorption of reactant molecules on the catalyst surface. The as-prepared CuO/CF monolith electrode shows excellent stability for alcohol oxidation at current densities >200 mA·cm2 for 24 h. Moreover, the abundant oxygen vacancies significantly enhance the intrinsic indicators of the catalyst in terms of specific activity and outstanding turnover frequencies of 5.8k s−1 and 6k s−1 for acetate and formate normalized by their respective faradaic efficiencies at an applied potential of 1.82 V vs. RHE.Citation
Khan, M., Hameed, A., Samad, A., Mushiana, T., Abdullah, M. I., Akhtar, A., Ashraf, R. S., Zhang, N., Pollet, B. G., Schwingenschlögl, U., & Ma, M. (2022). In situ grown oxygen-vacancy-rich copper oxide nanosheets on a copper foam electrode afford the selective oxidation of alcohols to value-added chemicals. Communications Chemistry, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42004-022-00708-1Sponsors
This work was supported by funding from the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (1908085J19), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21722406, 21975240), and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Mustafa Khan acknowledges the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) and TWAS for supporting his Ph.D. degree from the University of Science and Technology of China in the category of the 2019 CAS-TWAS President’s Fellowship Awardee (series no. 2019–184). Muhammad Imran Abdullah acknowledges the local challenge fund “LCF-7 (2020)” World Bank-funded HEDP project by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan for supporting his postdoctoral research from Government College University Lahore Pakistan.Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLCJournal
Communications ChemistryAdditional Links
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42004-022-00708-1ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1038/s42004-022-00708-1
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