Selective electro-oxidation of glycerol over Au supported on extended poly(4-vinylpyridine) functionalized graphene

Abstract Au nanoparticles (NPs) supported on various supports with different metal support interaction are synthesized and tested for glycerol electro-oxidation. Through off-line HPLC analysis, it is found that Au NPs supported on extended poly(4-vinylpyridine) functionalized graphene (Au-P4P/G) shows a much higher activity and much better selectivity for three carbon products than those on carbon black, P4P functionalized reduced graphene oxide (Au-P4P/rGO) and poly( m -aminophenol) (PmAP) wrapped graphene (Au-PmAP/G), e.g., the glyceric acid production reaches 68.6% at 0.2 V (vs. HgO/Hg), and the ratio between three carbon products and other products is 4.92 for Au-P4P/G compared with 0.96 of Au-CB. XPS results indicate that lower d-band center in Au nanoparticles induces higher three carbon selectivity and the changed adsorption ability for oxygen-containing groups might be the main reason.