In Situ Electrochemical Reconstitution of CF–CuO/CeO<sub>2</sub> for Efficient Active Species Generation
Xuliang Pang, Huaiquan Zhao, Yifei Huang, Youchao Liu, Hong‐Ye Bai, Weiqiang Fan, Weidong Shi
Abstract
Achievement of the intrinsic activity by in situ electrochemical reconstruction has been becoming a great challenge for designing a catalyst. Herein, an effective electrochemical strategy is proposed to reconstruct the surface of the CF–CuO/CeO 2 precursor. Under the stimulation of oxidative/reductive potential, abundant active sites were successfully generated on the surface of CF–CuO/CeO 2 . Remarkably, the implantation of oxygen vacancy-rich CeO 2 synergistically optimizes the chemical composition and electronic structure of CF–CuO/CeO 2, greatly promoting the generation of active species. Systematic electrochemical experiments indicate that the superior catalytic performance of reconstructed CF–CuO/CeO 2 could be attributed to CuOOH/CeO 2 and Cu 2 O/Ce 2 O 3 active species, respectively. The oxidative-/reductive-activated CF–CuO/CeO 2 was further employed in a paired cell for the synergistic catalysis of hydroxymethylfurfural oxidation with 4-nitrophenol hydrogenation. As a result, nearly 100% Faraday efficiency for furandicarboxylic acid/4-aminophenol production was achieved in the paired system (−0.9 V vs Ag/AgCl, 1.5 h). Therefore, the electrochemical reconstruction via oxidative/reductive activation has been confirmed as a feasible approach to significantly excite the intrinsic activity of a catalyst.