(669a) Electrifying Industrial Chemistry: Controlling the Electrocatalytic Transformation of Alcohols and Alkanes to Valuable Products

Producing fuels and chemicals using renewable electricity holds the promise to enable a truly sustainable circular economy based on sustainably produced carriers of electrical energy and sustainably produced chemicals. To date, the vast majority of electrocatalytic reactions are limited to the transformation of small inorganic molecules such as CO₂, H₂O, N₂, as well as the oxidation and reduction of alcohols. However, comprehensive electrification of the chemical industry will require electrocatalytic reactions that can promote the transformations of C(sp³)-H and C(sp³)-C(sp³) bonds, which are central to today’s industry.

In this presentation, I will show how fundamental understanding of the interfacial processes occurring in electrocatalytic reactions can be exploited to expand the reaction scope of electrocatalysis to the transformation of complex substrates involving the controlled activation of C-H and C-C bonds. In a first step, I will show how this approach allows us to transform ethanol to ethylene oxide, an important plastic precursor. Subsequently, I will discuss methods to electrocatalytically transform inert alkanes such as methane and ethane at room temperature.