Solar-driven upgrading of biomass by coupled hydrogenation using in situ (photo)electrochemically generated H<sub>2</sub>.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37758705.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-41742-4 and PMC identifier 10533862.
- 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
With the increasing pressure to decarbonize our society, green hydrogen has been identified as a key element in a future fossil fuel-free energy infrastructure. Solar water splitting through photoelectrochemical approaches is an elegant way to produce green hydrogen, but for low-value products like hydrogen, photoelectrochemical production pathways are difficult to be made economically competitive. A possible solution is to co-produce value-added chemicals. Here, we propose and demonstrate the in situ use of (photo)electrochemically generated H<sub>2</sub> for the homogeneous hydrogenation of itaconic acid-a biomass-derived feedstock-to methyl succinic acid. Coupling these two processes offers major advantages in terms of stability and reaction flexibility compared to direct electrochemical hydrogenation, while minimizing the overpotential. An overall conversion of up to ~60% of the produced hydrogen is demonstrated for our coupled process, and a techno-economic assessment of our proposed device further reveals the benefit of coupling solar hydrogen production to a chemical transformation.