Electrochemical Strategy for the Simultaneous Production of Cyclohexanone and Benzoquinone by the Reaction of Phenol and Water

Cyclohexanone and benzoquinone are important chemicals in chemical and manufacturing industries. The simultaneous production of cyclohexanone and benzoquinone by the reaction of phenol and water is an ideal route for the economical production of the two chemicals. In principle, this can be achieved in an electrochemical reaction system that couples the cathodic reduction of phenol to cyclohexanone and the anodic oxidation of phenol to benzoquinone, which has not been realized. Here, we report the first work on this integration strategy, where nitrogen-doped hierarchically porous carbon (NHPC)-supported NiPt and FeRu designed in this work are very efficient and selective cathode and anode catalysts, affording >99.9% selectivities to both cyclohexanone and benzoquinone. The excellent electrocatalytic performance of the catalysts can be ascribed to the poor absorption capability of the NiPt alloy nanoparticles (NPs) for cyclohexanone and Fe single-atom decorated Ru NPs for benzoquinone, which avoids the excessive reduction and oxidation of the desired products. The reaction pathway is proposed on the basis of control experiments, in which two phenol molecules react with one H2O molecule with 100% atom-efficiency. In the scale-up experiment at the 1 g scale, NiPt/NHPC and FeRu/NHPC exhibit excellent durability and stability, which enables this integrated system to afford 645.3 mg of cyclohexanone and 691.7 mg of benzoquinone synchronously in an operating time of 90 h.

Automated summary

This study reports an economical and efficient method for the simultaneous production of cyclohexanone and benzoquinone. Nitrogen-doped hierarchically porous carbon-supported NiPt and FeRu catalysts exhibit excellent selectivity and electrocatalytic performance, resulting in >99.9% selectivities to both cyclohexanone and benzoquinone.