Linking Fundamentals and Devices: Evaluating Low Pt Ag Nanocatalysts in Three Electrode Systems and Operating Glycerol AEM Electrolyzers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide Electro-oxidizing glycerol (GlOH) instead of water at the anode of an electrolyzer can lower the thermodynamic threshold potential by ∼1 V and simultaneously produce high-value-added products and green H 2 at the cathode. Herein, we report the use of Ag nanoparticles whose surfaces are enriched with low loadings of Pt (0.3–6.9 mol %) for the GlOH electro-oxidation reaction (GEOR). The optimized Pt(0.5%)Ag/C catalyst delivers ∼50% of the geometric area normalized-activity of commercial Pt/C for GEOR in 0.5 M NaOH + 1 M GlOH, while using about 140 times less Pt. This remarkable performance originates from the synergy between Pt and Ag: Pt sites adsorb and initiate glycerol oxidation, while Ag sites provide oxygenated species that sustain the reaction and steer the product selectivity. Potential-dependent selectivity was observed: below 0.9 V vs RHE, glycerate and lactate dominate, whereas above 0.9 V, C–C scission yields glycolate and formate, with relatively low complete oxidation to carbonate. Device-level tests in an anion exchange membrane (AEM) electrolyzer corroborate half-cell trends. AgPt/C sustains current densities comparable to Pt/C but favors earlier formation of tartronate and higher glycerate production, confirming that the bimetallic interface modulates the reaction pathways. Both devices also show lactate, i.e., the product coming from a combination of an electrochemical and a chemical transformation. The combination of (i) drastically reduced noble-metal content, (ii) high activity at potentials well below the oxygen-evolution region, (iii) tunable co-production of C3 and C2 oxygenates, and (iv) cooperative Pt–Ag synergy, positions Pt-decorated Ag as a cost-effective anode platform for paired GlOH electro-reforming and green H 2 generation. Besides, we showed here that the catalysts are promising for other small organic molecules and that the results in three-electrode electrochemical cells, despite some limitations, help predict activity and selectivity trends for real devices.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".