Selective electro-oxidation of glycerol over Au supported on extended poly(4-vinylpyridine) functionalized graphene

• Highly extended polymer on graphene as support causes lower d-band center of Au.
• Lower d-band center induces higher glyceric acid selectivity.
• Au supported on P4P-graphene is promising for direct glycerol fuel cell.

Au nanoparticles (NPs) supported on various supports with different metal support interaction are synthesized and tested for glycerol electro-oxidation. Through off-line HPLC analysis, it is found that Au NPs supported on extended poly(4-vinylpyridine) functionalized graphene (Au-P4P/G) shows a much higher activity and much better selectivity for three carbon products than those on carbon black, P4P functionalized reduced graphene oxide (Au-P4P/rGO) and poly(m-aminophenol) (PmAP) wrapped graphene (Au-PmAP/G), e.g., the glyceric acid production reaches 68.6% at 0.2 V (vs. HgO/Hg), and the ratio between three carbon products and other products is 4.92 for Au-P4P/G compared with 0.96 of Au-CB. XPS results indicate that lower d-band center in Au nanoparticles induces higher three carbon selectivity and the changed adsorption ability for oxygen-containing groups might be the main reason.

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