Electrochemical Synthesis of H2O2 Via Water Electrolysis

Abstract

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a crucial chemical with a wide range of applications in various industries, including paper bleaching, textile manufacturing and environmental protection for distillation, detoxification and color removal of wastewater. Electrochemical production of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) offers small scale decentralized process which is highly desirable for remote usages. Both oxygen reduction (eq. 1) and water oxidation (eq. 2) reactions could be exploited to produce H2O2.O2 + 2(H++e-) ---> H2O2 E0 = 0.7 V (1)2H2O ---> 2(H++e-) + H2O2 E0 = 1.76 V (2)These reactions are simple and remarkable, but in practice selectivity toward the desired H2O2 product is an issue since these are not the thermodynamically favored reactions for oxygen reduction and water oxidation. Over the past years, several efforts have been made to find selective, and active catalysts for these reactions.1–4 In this work, by combining density functional theory (DFT) calculations and experiment, we provide leads to design suitable electrocatalysts with high selectivity and activity for H2O2 synthesis from both processes.3 References (1) Siahrostami, S.; Verdaguer-Casadevall, A.; Karamad, M.; Deiana, D.; Malacrida, P.; Wickman, B.; Escudero-Escribano, M.; Paoli, E. a; Frydendal, R.; Hansen, T. W.; Chorkendorff, I.; Stephens, I. E. L. S.; Stephens, I. E.; Rossmeisl, J. Nat. Mater. 2013, 12 (12), 1137–1143.(2) Verdaguer-Casadevall, A.; Deiana, D.; Karamad, M.; Siahrostami, S.; Malacrida, P.; Hansen, T. W.; Rossmeisl, J.; Chorkendorff, I.; Stephens, I. E. L. Nano Lett. 2014, 14 (3), 1603–1608.(3) Siahrostami, S.; Li, G.-L.; Viswanathan, V.; Nørskov, J. K. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2017, 1157–1160.(4) Shi, X.; Siahrostami, S.; Li, G.-L.; Zhang, Y.; Chakthranont, P.; Studt, F.; Jaramillo, T. F.; Zheng, X.; Nørskov, J. K. Nat. Commun. 2017 (SEPT), 1–12.