(614e) Electrocatalytic Selective Oxidation of Glycerol to Tartronate and Electricity Generation Using Au, Pd Mono and Bimetallic Nanoparticles Supported On Carbon Nanotube As Anode Catalyst in Anion Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell

Electrocatalytic
selective oxidation of glycerol to tartronate with electricity generation using
Au, Pd mono and bimetallic nanoparticles supported on carbon nanotube as anode
catalyst in anion exchange membrane fuel cell

Ji Qi¹,
Le Xin¹, David Chadderdon¹, Yang Qiu¹, Yibo
Jiang², Zhiyong Zhang¹, Wenzhen Li¹

¹Department of Chemical Engineering,
Michigan Technological University

²Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering,
Michigan Technological University

As a renewable biomass feedstock, glycerol can be
valorized to a series of chemical products, among which tartronic acid is one
of the most expensive chemicals. Since glycerol oxidation reaction (GOR) is spontaneous
reaction with negative Gibbs free energy change, it's suitable to investigate
GOR in fuel cell to simultaneously obtain high yield of value-added product and
high electricity output. Studying the GOR in fuel cell not only have profitable
application value, but also provides deep scientific insights into the
difference between electrocatalytic reaction process and heterogeneous
catalytic reaction process.

In the present work, Au, Pd mono and bimetallic
nanoparticles supported on carbon nanotube (CNT) were prepared and used for
glycerol oxidation in anion exchange membrane fuel cell. In the past, fuel cell
anode potential window is very narrow. Therefore, high selectivity of
tartronate can only be obtained by consuming electricity in electrolysis cell which
has a relatively large anode potential window. We successfully designed the
electrode structure of fuel cell to lower down the anode potential in the fuel
cell and thus prevent overoxidation of tartronate to mesoxalate and C-C bond
cleavage. Also, the reaction rate is increased by alloying PdAu, leading to
high instantaneous electricity output. During the 8 h reaction process, stable
50 mW cm^-2 to 5 mW cm^-2 can be generated with 67% yield
of tartronate finally achieved using PdAu alloyed nanoparticles supported on
CNT as anode catalyst. Future work includes optimizing the catalyst synthesis
method and other operating parameters to further increase yield of different
kinds of target products.