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Highly efficient two-electron electroreduction of oxygen into hydrogen peroxide over Cu-doped TiO2

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Abstract

Electrosynthesis of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), as a sustainable alternative to the anthraquinone oxidation method, provides the feasibility of directly generating H2O2. Here, we report Cu-doped TiO2 as an efficient electrocatalyst which exhibits the excellent two-electron oxygen reduction reaction (2e− ORR) performance with respect to the pristine TiO2. The Cu doping results in the distortion of TiO2 lattice and further forms a large number of oxygen vacancies and Ti3+. Such Cu-doped TiO2 exhibits a positive onset potential about 0.79 V and high H2O2 selectivity about 91.2%. Moreover, it also shows a larger H2O2 yield and good stability. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that Cu dopant not only improves the electrical conductivity of pristine TiO2 but reduces the *OOH adsorption energy of active sites, which is beneficial to promote subsequently 2e− ORR process.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 22072015).

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Author notes

  1. Zhiqin Deng and Li Li contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610054, China

    Zhiqin Deng, Li Li, Yuchun Ren, Jie Liang, Kai Dong, Tingshuai Li & Xuping Sun

  2. College of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, 266109, China

    Chaoqun Ma & Shihai Yan

  3. Institute for Advanced Study, Chengdu University, Chengdu, 610106, China

    Qian Liu & Yonglan Luo

  4. College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, 250014, China

    Bo Tang

  5. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, 453007, China

    Yang Liu & Shuyan Gao

  6. Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science & Center of Excellence for Advanced Materials Research, King Abdulaziz University, P.O. Box 80203, Jeddah, 21589, Saudi Arabia

    Abdullah M. Asiri

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  1. Zhiqin Deng
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  2. Li Li
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Correspondence to Qian Liu, Shihai Yan or Xuping Sun.

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Deng, Z., Li, L., Ren, Y. et al. Highly efficient two-electron electroreduction of oxygen into hydrogen peroxide over Cu-doped TiO2. Nano Res. 15, 3880–3885 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3995-6

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