Co-Generation of\nHydrogen and FDCA from Biomass-Based\nHMF in a 3D-Printed Flow Electrolyzer

Among\nall the available resources, biomass is the key\nrenewable\nresource to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and produce\nfuels, chemicals, and other value-added products. This work uses an\nelectrochemical process to generate value-added chemicals and hydrogen\nsimultaneously from a biomass-derived platform chemical. A 3D-printed\nflow electrolyzer is used to study the generation of hydrogen and\nFDCA (2,5-furandicarboxylic acid) from HMF (5-(hydroxymethyl)furan-2-carbaldehyde)\nusing an alkaline electrolyte based on the principles of electrochemical\noxidation. A 3D-printed electrolytic cell is designed with a channel\nsize of 55 mm × 55 mm × 6 mm and an electrocatalyst area\nof 6.25 cm<sup>2</sup> in the form of an anode and cathode. In this\nwork, gold-sputtered nickel foam is used as an anode, while platinum-sputtered\nnickel foam is used as a cathode. A single pass through the electrolyzer\nyields 130 μmol/(h cm<sup>2</sup>) of hydrogen gas at ambient\ntemperature and pressure, along with 46 μmol/(h cm<sup>2</sup>) of FDCA. A maximum value of 80% conversion of HMF is obtained at\na flow rate of 0.5 mL/min in a single pass with a potential bias of\n3.5 V. This work opens the pathways for incorporating a microflow\nelectrolyzer to coproduce FDCA and hydrogen from biomass-derived HMF.