Selective Oxidation of Methanol into Value-Added Chemical over Alkali Etched Silver Nanowires-Ni-ZIF Composite

Abstract

This work reports the development of an alkaline etching strategy to fabricate defect-rich silver nanowires and Ni-based zeolitic imidazolate frameworks core-shell nanostructures (D-Ag NWs-Ni-ZIF) for anodic methanol oxidation. The D-Ag NWs-Ni-ZIF exhibited high electrocatalytic activity and good durability due to the open unsaturated metal sites and unique structure. It can be used as an anode material to convert methanol into high value-added formic acid with high selectivity, which requiring only a small potential of 1.313 V (vs RHE) to reach a current density of 10 mA•cm -2 . This indicates that the methanol upgrade process replaces the slow oxygen evolution reaction (OER), and greatly increases H2 production, and reduces the energy consumption and generate clean energy. This work opens up an economical and effective avenue for electrochemical production of hydrogen and formic acid, and it provides a very promising example of a technique for electrocatalytic conversion of small organic molecules using non-precious metal electrocatalysts.