Potential cycling boosts the electrochemical conversion of polyethylene terephthalate-derived alcohol into valuable chemicals.

ABSTRACT: The electrocatalytic valorization of polyethylene terephthalate-derived ethylene glycol to valuable glycolic acid offers considerable economic and environmental benefits. However, conventional methods face scalability issues due to rapid activity decay of noble metal electrocatalysts. We demonstrate that a dynamic potential cycling approach, which alternates the electrode potential between oxidizing and reducing values, significantly mitigates surface deactivation of noble metals during electrochemical oxidation of ethylene glycol. This method enhances catalyst activity by 20 times compared to a constant-potential approach, maintaining this performance for up to 60 h with minimal deactivation. In situ Raman and X-ray absorption spectroscopy show that this effectiveness results from efficie

SUBMITTER: Zhao G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11442646 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature