Designing physically separated bimetallic catalysts through cooperative redox enhancement (CORE)

Abstract

Liquid-phase heterogeneous catalysis underpins numerous chemical manufacturing processes, ranging from essential products to renewable energy sources, such as hydrogen. Despite the differences in reactor setups and the driving forces between thermos- and electro-catalysis, it is commonly overlooked that the two disciplines are fundamentally governed by the same underlying fundamentals. In this tutorial review, we explore the similarities between electro- and thermocatalysis and introduce how electrochemical methodologies can be applied to characterize thermocatalysis to gain both fundamental and experimental insights. Here, we discuss the recent discovery of Cooperative Redox Enhancement (CORE), a phenomenon whereby selectivity differences for two electrochemical half reactions on two physically separated but electrochemically connected dissimilar metal catalyst particles lead to acceleration of the overall catalytic rate. This approach suggests a new paradigm for the design of heterogeneous catalysis.