In Situ Electrochemical Reconstitution of CF–CuO/CeO2 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/CeO2 precursor. Under the stimulation of oxidative/reductive potential, abundant active sites were successfully generated on the surface of CF–CuO/CeO2. Remarkably, the implantation of oxygen vacancy-rich CeO2 synergistically optimizes the chemical composition and electronic structure of CF–CuO/CeO2, greatly promoting the generation of active species. Systematic electrochemical experiments indicate that the superior catalytic performance of reconstructed CF–CuO/CeO2 could be attributed to CuOOH/CeO2 and Cu2O/Ce2O3 active species, respectively. The oxidative-/reductive-activated CF–CuO/CeO2 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.