In this work, cobalt oxide (CoO_x) has been demonstrated as an efficient and selective electrocatalyst for producing value-added dihydroxyacetone (DHA) from industrial by-product glycerol. Under optimized conditions, DHA with high selectivity up to 45% and a high production rate of 9.6 μmol h⁻¹ cm⁻² is obtained at high current density over 3 mA cm⁻² without the occurrence of the oxygen evolution reaction. Operando Raman spectroscopy features the potential-induced structural transformation between CoO_x and oxyhydroxides from which a correlation among applied potential, surface chemistry of electrocatalyst, and product distribution are built. These results point toward the viability of using inexpensive materials for electrochemical biomass upgrading as well as providing opportunities for studying structural evolution and activity origin of catalysts under realistic working conditions that can be widely extended to most electrocatalytic biomass valorization processes.

在这项工作中，氧化钴 (CoO _x ) 已被证明是一种高效且选择性的电催化剂，可用于从工业副产品甘油生产增值二羟基丙酮 (DHA)。在优化条件下，在超过3 mA cm ^{-2 的}高电流密度下获得了高达45% 的高选择性和9.6 μmol h ^-1 cm ^{-2 的}高产率，而没有发生析氧反应。Operando拉曼光谱特征在于 CoO _x之间的电位诱导结构转变和羟基氧化物，从中建立了施加电位、电催化剂的表面化学和产物分布之间的相关性。这些结果表明使用廉价材料进行电化学生物质升级的可行性，并为研究现实工作条件下催化剂的结构演变和活性起源提供了机会，可广泛扩展到大多数电催化生物质增值过程。