Aliphatic alcohols, electrooxidation

From a general point of view, at ambient pressure and temperature, all electrooxidations of short-chain aliphatic alcohols (in acid) require the presence of the expensive precious metal Pt. However, as is well known, Pt is readily poisoned by CO-like intermediate species formed during methanol oxidation at low temperatures. It has been found that Pt-based binary or ternary catalysts, Pt-Mi, Pt-Mi-M2 (M = Ru, Sn, etc.) can improve the reaction kinetics of methanol electrooxidation based on the bifunctional effect (promoted mechanism by the second metal) [17,19,22,24,26] and/or on the tuned electronic properties of Pt (the intrinsic mechanism) [28,29,36]. The bifunctional effect is illustrated in the following equations ... 

Although benzyl alcohol is not an environmental pollutant, it will be included here because it is the paradigm of aromatic alcohols. The electrooxidation of the aliphatic alcohols methanol and ethylene glycol on Au and on polyNiTSPc/Au/Q electrodes in a pH 11 carbonate/hydrogen carbonate buffer electrolyte has been studied by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and with an electrochemical quartz crystal... 

Direct Alcohol fuel cell (DAFC) In direct alcohol fuel cell (DAFC) electrooxidation of aliphatic alcohol takes place through a catalyst (Pt or... 

Pd) and the chemical energy is converted into electrical energy. Simple alcohols such as methanol, ethanol, 1,3-propanediol, 1,2-propanediol, buta-nediol, pentanediol, glycol and glycerol (GL) are used. Among them methanol and ethanol are popular. The catalyst used for electrooxidation are Pd-PEDOT [204] for C3-Aliphatic Alcohols, Pt-Pd-Au nano-catalyst [192] for ethanol oxidation, Pt and Pt-Ru dispersed in graphene-multiwalled CNT nanocomposites [188] for methanol oxidation. 

The study of the adsorption and electrooxidation of ethanol on catalytic surfaces, such as platinum, is of considerable interest, both because of its possible use in fuel cells and because it is the first member of the series of aliphatic alcohols with a C—C bond. 

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