Metal single-site catalyst design for electrocatalytic production of hydrogen peroxide at industrial-relevant currents.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36635287.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-35839-z and PMC identifier 9837053.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Direct hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) electrosynthesis via the two-electron oxygen reduction reaction is a sustainable alternative to the traditional energy-intensive anthraquinone technology. However, high-performance and scalable electrocatalysts with industrial-relevant production rates remain to be challenging, partially due to insufficient atomic level understanding in catalyst design. Here we utilize theoretical approaches to identify transition-metal single-site catalysts for two-electron oxygen reduction using the *OOH binding energy as a descriptor. The theoretical predictions are then used as guidance to synthesize the desired cobalt single-site catalyst with a O-modified Co-(pyrrolic N)4 configuration that can achieve industrial-relevant current densities up to 300 mA cm-2 with 96-100% Faradaic efficiencies for H2O2 production at a record rate of 11,527 mmol h-1 gcat-1. Here, we show the feasibility and versatility of metal single-site catalyst design using various commercial carbon and cobalt phthalocyanine as starting materials and the high applicability for H2O2 electrosynthesis in acidic, neutral and alkaline electrolytes.