Oxidation of Starch to Highly Oxidized Starch Using Oxygen Gas and a Li, Ni, Mn, Co Oxide on Carbon Catalyst Prepared From Spent Li‐Ion Battery Electrode Coatings

Oxidation is one of the most widely applied modifications of starch for the preparation of value‐added materials with numerous applications. Sodium hypochlorite oxidation is currently used for this transformation, creating chlorinated by‐products with negative environmental impacts. In this work, a practically no‐cost catalyst prepared from electrode coatings in spent Li‐ion batteries was shown as an excellent catalyst for the oxidation of starch using oxygen as the oxidant. The catalyst with formula LiNi 0.03 Mn 0.02 Co 0.11 O 0.85 /C was prepared by pyrolysis of electrode coatings collected from used Li‐ion batteries at 873 K in air for 30 min. Oxidation of starch, using 10% (w/w) LiNi 0.03 Mn 0.02 Co 0.11 O 0.85 /C catalyst in 0.50 M aqueous sodium hydroxide under 0.21 MPa O 2 at 403 K, 4 h, gave the highest oxidized starch yield of 94% with a degree of oxidation of 31%. In conclusion, the novel catalytic process has advantages over the current process, including that Li‐ion battery waste is used as a catalyst, no chlorinated byproducts are formed, and inexpensive oxygen gas is used as the stoichiometric oxidant.