Proceedings of MATSUS Fall 2023 Conference (MATSUSFall23)
Publication date: 18th July 2023
In this study, a facile tandem method was developed for efficient glycine electrosynthesis by increasing the yield of the intermediate. In the tandem electrocatalytic operation, oxalic acid is first reduced to glyoxylic acid in the OA-to-GA step at the surface of Lead foil, followed by C-N coupling to produce glycine in the GA+NT-to-GL step. Impressively, compared to the one-step electrolysis, the tandem electrolysis showed a significant improvement to a maximum glycine FE of 46.1 ± 1.7% at -300mA cm-2 and maintained a high FE plateau across a wide current density range. In addition, the improved tandem electrolysis demonstrated a high glycine partial current density of -226 ± 25.5 mA cm-2 or an glycine production rate of 0.82 ± 0.1 mM h-1 cm-2, indicating a significant improvement over previous reports.The tandem strategy developed in this work provides a new method for promoting C-N coupled reaction and can therefore be further extended to other electrochemical energy conversion reactions.