Breaking Activity‐Stability Trade‐Off by Switching Reaction Pathway for Efficient Electrosynthesis of Glycerate at Industrial‐Scale Current Density
The selective electrooxidation of biomass represents a sustainable solution for the synthesis of high-valued chemicals, yet it remains challenging to balance activity, selectivity, and stability. Herein, we report the selective regulation of β-NiCoOOH and γ-NiCoOOH through the precise modulation of precursors, demonstrating β-NiCoOOH as active catalyst exhibit excellent performance for the electrocatalytic valorization of glycerol to glycerate (GLA) with a remarkable selectivity of 78.44% and an industrial-scale current density of 1 A cm<sup>-2</sup> in an anion exchange membrane electrolyzer for continuous long-term operation of 1080 h. We revealed that the electrooxidation of glycerol to C3 product is contingent on the generation of β-NiCoOOH phase with Co<sup>3+</sup> species as the dominant active center while γ-NiCoOOH phase with a large amount of Co<sup>4+</sup> sites is beneficial to the cleavage of C─C bond for C1 product. Mass spectrometry and density functional theory (DFT) calculations elucidate that β-NiCoOOH featuring inert lattice oxygen modulates the electronic configuration of the key glyceraldehyde intermediate, which enhances the stability of C─C bond, suppresses undesired cleavage, and thereby promotes the selective electrosynthesis of GLA via the ∙OH-assisted adsorbate evolution mechanism (AEM). This work provides a scalable strategy and offers deep insights into the phase-dependent reaction mechanisms in electrocatalytic biomass upgrading.
Authors
- Tong Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2508-8339)
- Jungang Hou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0344-6011)
- Dingfeng Jin
- Jiantao Xu
Institutions
- Dalian University (CN)
- Ocean University of China (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Angewandte Chemie International Edition
- Published
- 2026-03-04
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.3574115
- Primary Topic
- Catalysis for Biomass Conversion
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00