Electrochemical oxygen reduction to hydrogen peroxide at practical rates in strong acidic media

Electrochemical oxygen reduction to hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) in acidic media, especially in proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrode assembly reactors, suffers from low selectivity and the lack of low-cost catalysts. Here we present a cation-regulated interfacial engineering approach to promote the H₂O₂ selectivity (over 80%) under industrial-relevant generation rates (over 400 mA cm^-2) in strong acidic media using just carbon black catalyst and a small number of alkali metal cations, representing a 25-fold improvement compared to that without cation additives. Our density functional theory simulation suggests a "shielding effect" of alkali metal cations which squeeze away the catalyst/electrolyte interfacial protons and thus prevent further reduction of generated H₂O₂ to water. A double-PEM solid electrolyte reactor was further developed to realize a continuous, selective (∼90%) and stable (over 500 hours) generation of H₂O₂ via implementing this cation effect for practical applications.