Sustainable Furfural Biomass Feedstocks Electrooxidation Toward Value-Added Furoic Acid with Energy-Saving H2 Fuel Production Using Pt-Decorated Co3O4 Nanospheres

Here, furfural oxidation was performed to replace the kinetically sluggish O2 evolution reaction (OER). Pt‐Co3O4 nanospheres were developed via pulsed laser ablation in liquid (PLAL) in a single step for the paired electrocatalysis of an H2 evolution reaction (HER) and furfural oxidation reaction (FOR). The FOR afforded a high furfural conversion (44.2%) with a major product of 2‐furoic acid after a 2‐h electrolysis at 1.55 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode in a 1.0‐M KOH/50‐mM furfural electrolyte. The Pt‐Co3O4 electrode exhibited a small overpotential of 290 mV at 10 mA cm−2. As an anode and cathode in an electrolyzer system, the Pt‐Co3O4 electrocatalyst required only a small applied cell voltage of ∼1.83 V to deliver 10 mA cm−2, compared with that of the pure water electrolyzer (OER∥HER, ∼1.99 V). This study simultaneously realized the integrated production of energy‐saving H2 fuel at the cathode and 2‐furoic acid at the anode.