Solketal Electrooxidation to Glyceric Acid

Selectivity > 90%

Using solketal to protect the primary hydroxyl of glycerol, suppressing C-C bond cleavage in highly alkaline media, enabling high selectivity for glyceric acid on non-noble-metal catalysts.

Dos Santos, Egon Campos · Liu, Hong · Johnsson, M. · Yu, Xiaowen

Angewandte Chemie - International Edition 2026

Specifications

Glyceric acid selectivity

{'zh': '90.1', 'en': '90.1'} %

Production rate

{'zh': '675.45', 'en': '675.45'} µmol cm⁻² h⁻¹

Substrate conversion

{'zh': '95', 'en': '95'} %

Solketal synthesis yield

{'zh': '90', 'en': '90'} %

Solketal purity

{'zh': '99', 'en': '99'} %

GLA purity

{'zh': '99', 'en': '99'} %

Advantages

Selectivity boosted to 90%

Ketal protection of glycerol's primary hydroxyl shields vicinal diols and suppresses C─C bond cleavage, enabling 90.1% selectivity to glyceric acid.

Works with non-noble catalyst

Using Cu3Mo2O9, a non-noble metal catalyst, high performance is achieved in 6.0 M KOH without precious metals.

Stable for 100 h

The system maintains stable operation over 100 hours, demonstrating robustness.

Applications

• Biomass electrocatalytic conversion：Efficiently converts biomass-derived glycerol to glyceric acid, replacing traditional chemical oxidation routes.
• Glycerol valorization：Improves economics of glycerol oxidation to yield valuable platform chemicals.
• Selective oxidation catalysis：Uses substrate protection to achieve site-selective oxidation and suppress C─C cleavage.
• Electrosynthesis of fine chemicals：Electrochemically synthesizes high-purity glyceric acid for fine chemical production.