Unraveling a bifunctional mechanism for methanol-to-formate electro-oxidation on nickel-based hydroxides

Abstract For nickel-based catalysts, in-situ formed nickel oxyhydroxide has been generally believed as the origin for anodic biomass electro-oxidations. However, rationally understanding the catalytic mechanism still remains challenging. In this work, we demonstrate that NiMn hydroxide as the anodic catalyst can enable methanol-to-formate electro-oxidation reaction (MOR) with a low cell-potential of 1.33/1.41 V at 10/100 mA cm −2 , a Faradaic efficiency of nearly 100% and good durability in alkaline media, remarkably outperforming NiFe hydroxide. Based on a combined experimental and computational study, we propose a cyclic pathway that consists of reversible redox transitions of Ni II -(OH) 2 /Ni III -OOH and…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: 52172050, 22171068
• GO
  Government of Jiangsu Province

  Award: XCL-078
• ST
  Six Talent Peaks Project in Jiangsu Province

  Award: XCL-078
• NS
  Natural Science Research of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China

  Award: 21KJA480002
• NK
  National Key Research and Development Program of China

  Award: 2020YFB1506401