Design and Synthesis of bulk-active Polymeric Organic Electrocatalysts for efficient Electroorganic Synthesis (PolyElectroCAT)

Research Project, 2024 – 2029

As the top industrial energy consumer, the chemical industry must rapidly develop new low-carbon technologies to lower the industry’s carbon footprint for preparing chemicals and materials for our everyday life. Current synthetic approaches have a low atom economy and rely on the functionalization of reagents with reactive groups that form desired products at elevated temperatures or pressures. These processes are wasteful and energy-intensive, they form hazardous side products and require energy for heating that is often provided by fossil fuels.
Imagine a future where organic chemical reactions are driven with electricity from renewables with a high atom economy and fewer side products. Electroorganic synthesis holds great promise for achieving these goals since reactive intermediates are formed in situ at electrode surfaces, forming products with high selectivities under efficient reaction conditions. While the field is rapidly maturing and highly selective processes are reported for a wide spectrum of reactions, the majority of electrode materials currently employed are based on precious metals. Relying on precious metals for developing the technology is a risk due to their scarcity, supply-chain bottlenecks, and high cost.
PolyElectroCAT develops a new class of electrode materials for efficient electroorganic synthesis using solely earth-abundant elements. The materials are redox-active carbon-based materials with tailor-made metal complexes that create high activity and selectivity for energy-uphill, reductive electrocatalytic reactions. These materials achieve functionality rarely achieved for metals where electrode materials are solution processible and function as binder- and additive-free electrodes. Moreover, the electrode reacts volumetrically, enabling the exploration of entire new directions for electrosynthesis employing the entire bulk of the electrode material rather than the surface only.