Abstract
Tremendous research efforts have been made to electrochemically convert CO2 into useful chemicals, with the main products being limited to hydrocarbons and oxygenates. One-step processes that integrate CO2 reduction with a subsequent reaction to produce other types of functional chemicals are economically attractive. Here we report that direct electrochemical conversion of CO2 to 2-bromoethanol, a valuable pharmaceutical intermediate, is enabled by coupling the anodic and cathodic reactions with the presence of potassium bromide electrolyte in a membraneless electrochemical cell. The maximum Faradaic efficiency of converting CO2 to 2-bromoethanol that we achieved is 40% at −1.01 VRHE with a partial current density of −19 mA cm–2. Our work demonstrates a new strategy for making value-added products from CO2 through a simple process.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 600-605 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | ACS Energy Letters |
Volume | 4 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 29 2019 |
Bibliographical note
KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-04-23Acknowledgements: The authors thank the support from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.