Efficient Cascade Abiotic Synthesis of Sugar From CO 2

ABSTRACT The capability of producing sugar compounds from carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), ideally based on abiotic systems, suggests an artificial, scalable strategy to provide potential solutions for both food and environmental issues. In this work, we report an inorganic, abiotic pathway for the synthesis of sugar from CO 2 without any enzymatic or biological components, comprising several electrocatalytic‐catalytic cascade reactions. CO 2 is first electrochemically reduced to ethylene (C 2 H 4 ) on a Cu catalyst, and then oxidized to ethylene glycol by hydrogen peroxide in situ generated from the O 2 reduction. Ethylene glycol is further oxidized into glycolaldehyde on a platinum catalyst, and the overall CO 2 ‐to‐glycolaldehyde Faradaic efficiency (FE) reaches ≈ 15.9%. Finally, the as‐formed glycolaldehyde is coupled into C 6+ sugar compounds (i.e., higher‐carbon carbohydrates products) via the Formose reaction, obviating the need to use biochemical/enzymatic reactions or any additional carbon‐based molecules. Using this cascade reaction, we demonstrated an efficient CO 2 ‐to‐sugar production rate of 2.1 g per day with a total carbon selectivity of 25.9%, featuring an attractive approach for producing sugars from CO 2 by renewable electricity.