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Most organic commodity chemicals are derived from fossil carbon resources. The dependency is so immense that it is difficult to compensate for the accompanying carbon footprint with current technology and chemical infrastructure. To mitigate the future fossil fuel usage, it is crucial to explore alternative chemical pathways, which are both sustainable and suitable for large-scale productions. Here we demonstrate a closed-loop carbon-neutral chemical route, using standard coin catalyst, to produce high concentrated formate and formic acid. The catalyst’s Faradaic efficiency (FE) of formate is ~ 95.3% with great durability. The chemicals are not only synthesized but also purified and utilized in zero-carbon scenarios. We successfully harvested 45% formate salt and 86.2% formic acid, for applications like anti-freezing reagent and green liquid fuel to power the fuel-cell vehicles.

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Publication history
Copyright

Publication history

Received: 29 September 2021
Revised: 06 November 2021
Accepted: 09 November 2021
Published: 06 December 2021
Issue date: May 2022

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021
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