Highly Efficient Electrocatalytic Oxidation of Sterol by Synergistic
Effect of Aminoxyl Radicals and Se-Ni5P4
Abstract
The exploration of efficient and environmentally friendly oxidation
method is highly desirable to overcome the critical problems of poor
selectivity and heavy metal contamination for the fine chemicals
industry. Herein, a self-supported 3D Se-Ni5P4 nanosheet electrocatalyst
was rationally designed and fabricated. Benefiting from the synergistic
effect of aminoxyl radical and mesoporous Se-Ni5P4/GF, an excellent
performance of ≥98% selectivity and 33.12 kg/(m3·h) space-time yield
was obtained for sterol intermediate oxidation with the enhanced mass
transfer effect of the continuous flow system. The doping of anionic
selenium and phosphorus modulated the electronic structure of Se-Ni5P4,
and the oxyhydroxides generated by surface reconstruction accelerated
the turnover of TEMPO, thereby enhancing the intrinsic electrocatalytic
activity. A scale-up experiment was conducted with stacked-flow
electrolyzer demonstrated the application potential. This work provided
an efficient synergistic electrocatalytic strategy to facilitate rapid
electron and mass transfer for electrochemical alcohol oxidation and
highlighted the potential for practical electrosynthesis applications.