Tapping Renewables: A New Dawn for Organic Electrosynthesis in Aqueous Reaction Media

The birthplace of organic electrochemistry was an aqueous solution, with a biogenic, renewable compound being the reactant of the first organic electrosynthesis. Now, 170 years later, the relevance of electrosynthesis is rising again and, hence, the original work comes to the fore. Water is considered a green solvent, biogenic compounds increasingly replace fossil compounds as a feedstock for the chemical industry, and electrosynthesis bridges energy and chemistry sector. In this Minireview, we advocate the use of water as the solvent for electrochemical conversion of biogenic organic compounds. We show that, although the use of water may put certain constraints on organic electrosynthesis, using aqueous reaction media opens interesting perspectives. As illustrated on selected examples, synergies can be created for the conversion of oxygenates, for hydrogenation and hydrodeoxygenation reactions, product separation and in coupling electrochemical and biochemical processes.