PtBiCoAgSn Multi-Component Alloy Electrocatalysts Enhancing the Oxidation of Ethylene Glycol to Value-Added C2 Products

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new alloy catalyst that efficiently converts ethylene glycol into valuable products with high activity and stability.

Contribution

A novel PtBiCoAgSn multi-component alloy electrocatalyst is developed for enhanced ethylene glycol oxidation.

Findings

The catalyst achieves 16.65 A mgPt−1 mass activity, 8 times higher than commercial Pt/C.

It maintains 4.89 A mgPt−1 current density after long-term stability testing.

The catalyst shows 91% Faradaic efficiency for glycolic acid at low potential.

Abstract

Ethylene glycol oxidation (EGOR) transforms waste plastic-derived chemicals into high-value products, representing an upcycling strategy that enhances resource efficiency. Pt-based electrocatalysts have shown promise for oxidizing ethylene glycol (EG) to high-value glycolic acid (GA), but they still suffer from high Pt usage, limited activity and stability, and poor low-potential selectivity. In this work, we report a highly dispersed PtBiCoAgSn multi-component alloy (MCA) electrocatalyst (denoted as MCA-PtBiCoAgSn) with outstanding catalytic activity and deactivation resistance, demonstrating a remarkable EGOR mass activity of 16.65 A mgPt−1 at 0.76 V vs. RHE, which is 8-fold higher than that of commercial Pt/C (2.03 A mgPt−1). Also, it can maintain an EGOR current density of 4.89 A mgPt−1 after an extended long-term stability test. Additionally, it shows superior Faradaic efficiency (FE) for C2 products compared to Pt/C across the potential window of 0.5~0.9 V vs. RHE, with the FE of GA being up to 91% at a very low potential of 0.5 V vs. RHE. Moreover, in situ electrochemical infrared spectroscopy in a thin-layer configuration confirmed that EGOR proceeds via the C2 pathway on MCA-PtBiCoAgSn surfaces. This work may provide new insights into the design of high-efficiency and low-cost EGOR catalysts.

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