Synergistic Bimetallic PdNi Nanoparticles : Enhancing Glycerol Electrooxidation While Preserving C3 Product Selectivity

Abstract

Electrochemical conversion of glycerol offers a promising route to synthesize value-added glycerol oxidation products (GOPs) from an abundant biomass-based resource. While noble metals provide a low overpotential for the glycerol electrooxidation reaction (GEOR) and high selectivity toward three-carbon (C3) GOPs, their efficiency and cost can be improved by incorporating non-noble metals. Here, we introduce an effective strategy to enhance the performance of Pd nanoparticles for the GEOR by alloying them with Ni. The resulting PdNi nanoparticles show a significant increase in both specific activity (by almost 60%) and mass activity (by almost 35%) during the GEOR at 40 °C. Additionally, they exhibit higher resistance to deactivation compared to pure Pd. Analysis of the GOPs reveals that the addition of Ni into Pd does not compromise the selectivity, with glycerate remaining at around 60% of the product fraction and the other major product being lactate at around 30%. Density functional theory calculations confirm the reaction pathways and the basis for the higher activity of PdNi. This study demonstrates a significant increase in the GEOR catalytic performance while maintaining the selectivity for C3 GOPs, using a more cost-effective nanocatalyst.