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Replacing rare and expensive noble metal catalysts with inexpensive and earth-abundant ones for various renewable energy-related chemical processes as well as for production of high value chemicals is one of the major goals of sustainable chemistry. Herein we show that a bimetallic Zn-Co layered double hydroxide (Zn-Co-LDH) can serve as an efficient electrocatalyst and catalyst for water and alcohol oxidation, respectively. In the electrochemical water oxidation, the material exhibits a lower overpotential, by ~100 mV, than monometallic Co-based solid-state materials (e.g., Co(OH)2 and Co3O4)-catalytic systems that were recently reported to be effective for this reaction. Moreover, the material's turnover frequency (TOF) per Co atoms is >10 times as high as those of the latter at the same applied potentials. The Zn-Co-LDH also catalyzes oxidation of alcohols to the corresponding aldehydes or ketones at relatively low temperature, with moderate to high conversion and excellent selectivity.
Zou et al. (Fri,) studied this question.