Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

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Browsing Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering by Author "Adler, Zachary"

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    Hydrogen Peroxide Electrosynthesis in a Strong Acidic Environment Using Cationic Surfactants
    (American Chemical Society, 2024) Adler, Zachary; Zhang, Xiao; Feng, Guangxia; Shi, Yaping; Zhu, Peng; Xia, Yang; Shan, Xiaonan; Wang, Haotian
    The two-electron oxygen reduction reaction (2e–-ORR) can be exploited for green production of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), but it still suffers from low selectivity in an acidic electrolyte when using non-noble metal catalysts. Here, inspired by biology, we demonstrate a strategy that exploits the micellization of surfactant molecules to promote the H2O2 selectivity of a low-cost carbon black catalyst in strong acid electrolytes. The surfactants near the electrode surface increase the oxygen solubility and transportation, and they provide a shielding effect that displaces protons from the electric double layer (EDL). Compared with the case of a pure acidic electrolyte, we find that, when a small number of surfactant molecules were added to the acid, the H2O2 Faradaic efficiency (FE) was improved from 12% to 95% H2O2 under 200 mA cm–2, suggesting an 8-fold improvement. Our in situ surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and optical microscopy (OM) studies suggest that, while the added surfactant reduces the electrode’s hydrophobicity, its micelle formation could promote the O2 gas transport and its hydrophobic tail could displace local protons under applied negative potentials during catalysis, which are responsible for the improved H2O2 selectivity in strong acids.