In Situ Electrochemical Reconstitution of CF-CuO/CeO for Efficient Active Species Generation.

Achievement of the intrinsic activity by in situ electrochemical reconstruction has been becoming a great challenge for designing a catalyst. Herein, an effective electrochemical strategy is proposed to reconstruct the surface of the CF-CuO/CeO precursor. Under the stimulation of oxidative/reductive potential, abundant active sites were successfully generated on the surface of CF-CuO/CeO. Remarkably, the implantation of oxygen vacancy-rich CeO synergistically optimizes the chemical composition and electronic structure of CF-CuO/CeO, greatly promoting the generation of active species. Systematic electrochemical experiments indicate that the superior catalytic performance of reconstructed CF-CuO/CeO could be attributed to CuOOH/CeO and CuO/CeO active species, respectively. The oxidative-/reductive-activated CF-CuO/CeO was further employed in a paired cell for the synergistic catalysis of hydroxymethylfurfural oxidation with 4-nitrophenol hydrogenation. As a result, nearly 100% Faraday efficiency for furandicarboxylic acid/4-aminophenol production was achieved in the paired system (-0.9 V vs Ag/AgCl, 1.5 h). Therefore, the electrochemical reconstruction via oxidative/reductive activation has been confirmed as a feasible approach to significantly excite the intrinsic activity of a catalyst.