Scalable electrosynthesis of commodity chemicals from biomass by suppressing non-Faradaic transformations

Electrooxidation of biomass platforms provides a sustainable route to produce valuable oxygenates, but the practical implementation is hampered by the severe carbon loss stemming from inherent instability of substrates and/or intermediates in alkaline electrolyte, especially under high concentration. Herein, based on the understanding of non-Faradaic degradation, we develop a single-pass continuous flow reactor (SPCFR) system with high ratio of electrode-area/electrolyte-volume, short duration time of substrates in the reactor, and separate feeding of substrate and alkaline solution, thus largely suppressing non-Faradaic degradation. By constructing a nine-stacked-modules SPCFR system, we achieve…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: BL1W1B, 22325805, 22105015, 22288102, 22308015, 21978147, 21935001
• NS
  Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality

  Award: JQ22003
• FR
  Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities

  Awards: 22288102, buctrc202211
• BS
  Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility