Rhenium-Doped Antimony Trioxide for Biomass Sucrose Upcycling to Generate Formic Acid Coupling Hydrogen Evolution

It is of significance that abundant biomass sucrose is converted into the high-value-added formic acid (FA) through the sucrose oxidative reaction (SOR). Herein, the high melting point metal rhenium (Re) is doped into the Sb₂O₃ to form Re-Sb₂O₃ nanoblock. The Re-Sb₂O₃ has narrower bandgap and more active sites, so it shows good electrocatalytic performances with a low SOR potential of 1.28 V at 10 mA cm^-2 and a hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) overpotential of 173 mV at 10 mA cm^-2 in 1 M KOH + 0.1 M sucrose, which are superior to Sb₂O₃ and commercial RuO₂ and Pt/C. The Re-Sb₂O₃ successfully catalyzes sucrose to FA according to the ¹H NMR data with a high Faradaic efficiency (FE) of 87.7% at 1.6 V. This work provides a strategy for biomass sucrose upcycling to protect environment linking to hydrogen evolution.