How to prevent cathodic corrosion of metal electrodes in electroorganic synthesis
Sustainability is an important issue in business and industry these days. Many companies recognize the need to find the best possible climate-neutral solutions for manufacturing their products and reduce their output of pollutants. This means they are looking for manufacturing options that do not require the use of fossil raw materials. Great potential in this respect is seen in electrosynthesis, a process that involves the transformation of chemical substances in an electrolysis cell using electrical energy.
A team of researchers led by Professor Siegfried Waldvogel, spokesperson of the SusInnoScience Top-Level Research Area at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), has already demonstrated, for example, that it is possible to use this technique to extract the flavor compound vanillin from wood waste. One particularly promising application of electrosynthesis would be its use for the production of plastics precursors. Electrosynthesis would not only be more efficient than the conventional techniques but also would not entail the consumption of fossil resources. However, there is a significant and as yet largely overlooked snag: During electrosynthesis, a process known as cathodic corrosion occurs. Waldvogel's team decided to explore this issue more deeply by first undertaking a review of literature on the subject. The results of that research have been published recently in Chemical Reviews.
The research team assessed articles dealing with cathodic corrosion that have appeared over the past 130 years, including some 30 papers that they themselves produced. "Our team and a Chinese group are the only ones with the necessary expertise to carry out such a literature review," emphasized Waldvogel.
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