Controlling selectivity in the chlorine evolution reaction over RuO₂-based catalysts

Kai S Exner; Josef Anton; Timo Jacob; Herbert Over

doi:10.1002/anie.201406112

Controlling selectivity in the chlorine evolution reaction over RuO₂-based catalysts

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2014 Oct 6;53(41):11032-5. doi: 10.1002/anie.201406112. Epub 2014 Aug 25.

Authors

Kai S Exner¹, Josef Anton, Timo Jacob, Herbert Over

Affiliation

¹ Physical Chemistry Department, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 58, 35392 Giessen (Germany).

PMID: 25154724
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201406112

Abstract

In the industrially important Chlor-Alkali process, the chlorine evolution reaction (CER) over a ruthenium dioxide (RuO2) catalyst competes with the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). This selectivity issue is elucidated on the microscopic level with the single-crystalline model electrode RuO2(110) by employing density functional theory (DFT) calculations in combination with the concept of volcano plots. We demonstrate that one monolayer of TiO2(110) supported on RuO2(110) enhances the selectivity towards the CER by several orders of magnitudes, while preserving the high activity for the CER. This win-win situation is attributed to the different slopes of the volcano curves for the CER and OER.

Keywords: chlorine evolution; density functional calculations; electrocatalysis; ruthenium dioxide; selectivity.