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High‐Yield Electrosynthesis of Hydrogen Peroxide from Oxygen Reduction by Hierarchically Porous Carbon
Author(s) -
Liu Yanming,
Quan Xie,
Fan Xinfei,
Wang Hua,
Chen Shuo
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201502396
Subject(s) - electrosynthesis , yield (engineering) , hydrogen peroxide , anthraquinone , chemistry , carbon fibers , selectivity , redox , electrochemistry , nuclear chemistry , catalysis , inorganic chemistry , chemical engineering , materials science , organic chemistry , electrode , metallurgy , composite material , composite number , engineering
H 2 O 2 production by electroreduction of O 2 is an attractive alternative to the current anthraquinone process, which is highly desirable for chemical industries and environmental remediation. However, it remains a great challenge to develop cost‐effective electrocatalysts for H 2 O 2 synthesis. Here, hierarchically porous carbon (HPC) was proposed for the electrosynthesis of H 2 O 2 from O 2 reduction. It exhibited high activity for O 2 reduction and good H 2 O 2 selectivity (95.0–70.2 %, most of them >90.0 % at pH 1–4 and >80.0 % at pH 7). High‐yield H 2 O 2 generation has been achieved on HPC with H 2 O 2 concentrations of 222.6–62.0 mmol L −1 (2.5 h) and corresponding H 2 O 2 production rates of 395.7–110.2 mmol h −1 g −1 at pH 1–7 and −0.5 V. Moreover, HPC was energy‐efficient for H 2 O 2 production with current efficiency of 81.8–70.8 %. The exceptional performance of HPC for electrosynthesis of H 2 O 2 could be attributed to its high content of sp 3 ‐C and defects, large surface area and fast mass transfer.