Simple Preparation of Au–NiO/NF Electrocatalyst with High Performance for Electrooxidation of Glycerol Instead of Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Substitution of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) for glycerol (gly) electro-oxidation reaction (GEOR) has the advantage of enhancing the overall efficiency of energy conversion, producing various value-added chemicals as an alternative to the low-value oxygen, and preventing the formation of an explosive mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. However, GEOR faces the problems of high potential at the anode, which poses serious obstacles to this technology. In this paper, the electrocatalyst of freestanding NiO-doped Au supported on nickel foam (NF) (Au–NiO/NF) is prepared by hydrothermal methods and used in GEOR for substitution of OER. The experimental results show that in the GEOR system, the potential required for the anode is 0.57 V versus RHE at 10 mA cm⁻², which is lower by 1.01 V than that of OER in water electrolysis. The reason for the low potential is studied, which is ascribed to the electronic interaction between Au and NiO and the porous structure.