Selective photoelectrochemical oxidation of glycerol to high value-added dihydroxyacetone

Dong Liu; Jin-Cheng Liu; Weizheng Cai; Jun Ma; Hong Bin Yang; Hai Xiao; Jun Li; Yujie Xiong; Yanqiang Huang; Bin Liu

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-09788-5

Selective photoelectrochemical oxidation of glycerol to high value-added dihydroxyacetone

Nat Commun. 2019 Apr 16;10(1):1779. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-09788-5.

Authors

Dong Liu¹, Jin-Cheng Liu², Weizheng Cai¹, Jun Ma³, Hong Bin Yang^{1

4}, Hai Xiao⁵, Jun Li², Yujie Xiong⁶, Yanqiang Huang⁷, Bin Liu⁸

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 62 Nanyang Drive, Singapore, 637459, Singapore.
² Department of Chemistry and Key Laboratory of Organic Optoelectronics & Molecular Engineering of Ministry of Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
³ Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China.
⁴ Institute for Materials Science and Devices, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, 215009, China.
⁵ Department of Chemistry and Key Laboratory of Organic Optoelectronics & Molecular Engineering of Ministry of Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China. haixiao@tsinghua.edu.cn.
⁶ Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China. yjxiong@ustc.edu.cn.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, 116023, China.
⁸ School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 62 Nanyang Drive, Singapore, 637459, Singapore. liubin@ntu.edu.sg.

Abstract

It is highly profitable to transform glycerol - the main by-product from biodiesel production to high value-added chemicals. In this work, we develop a photoelectrochemical system based on nanoporous BiVO₄ for selective oxidation of glycerol to 1,3-dihydroxyacetone - one of the most valuable derivatives of glycerol. Under AM 1.5G front illumination (100 mW cm^-2) in an acidic medium (pH = 2) without adscititious oxidant, the nanoporous BiVO₄ photoanode achieves a glycerol oxidation photocurrent density of 3.7 mA cm^-2 at a potential of 1.2 V versus RHE with 51% 1,3-dihydroxyacetone selectivity, equivalent to a production rate of 200 mmol of 1,3-dihydroxyacetone per m² of illumination area in one hour.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't