Issue 17, 2024

Electrocatalytic functional group conversion-based carbon resource upgrading

Abstract

The conversions of carbon resources, such as alcohols, aldehydes/ketones, and ethers, have been being one of the hottest topics most recently for the goal of carbon neutralization. The emerging electrocatalytic upgrading has been regarded as a promising strategy aiming to convert carbon resources into value-added chemicals. Although exciting progress has been made and reviewed recently in this area by mostly focusing on the explorations of valuable anodic oxidation or cathodic reduction reactions individually, however, the reaction rules of these reactions are still missing, and how to purposely find or rationally design novel but efficient reactions in batches is still challenging. The properties and transformations of key functional groups in substrate molecules play critically important roles in carbon resources conversion reactions, which have been paid more attention to and may offer hidden keys to achieve the above goal. In this review, the properties of functional groups are addressed and discussed in detail, and the reported electrocatalytic upgrading reactions are summarized in four categories based on the types of functional groups of carbon resources. Possible reaction pathways closely related to functional groups will be summarized from the aspects of activation, cleavage and formation of chemical bonds. The current challenges and future opportunities of electrocatalytic upgrading of carbon resources are discussed at the end of this review.

Graphical abstract: Electrocatalytic functional group conversion-based carbon resource upgrading

Article information

Article type
Review Article
Submitted
09 Jan 2024
Accepted
23 Mar 2024
First published
02 Apr 2024
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2024,15, 6269-6284

Electrocatalytic functional group conversion-based carbon resource upgrading

D. Si, X. Teng, B. Xiong, L. Chen and J. Shi, Chem. Sci., 2024, 15, 6269 DOI: 10.1039/D4SC00175C

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements