Selective superoxide radical generation for glucose photoreforming into arabinose

Biomass photorefinery to produce fuels and valuable chemicals is a promising approach to alleviating the energy crisis and achieving carbon neutrality. However, precisely modulating the photocatalytic conver-sion of biomass into value-added chemicals is still challenging. Here we demonstrate a feasible strategy to selectively produce arabinose via oriented glucose oxidation to gluconic acid, followed by the decar-boxylation process for C1-C2 bond cleavage. To realize this process, gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) modified carbon nitride (AuCN) is rationally designed to regulate the electron transfer behavior of pristine carbon nitride from a two-electron pathway to a single-electron pathway. This allows selective production of superoxide (.O2?) from oxygen reduction reaction which triggers glucose oxidation into gluconic acid. In addition, the arabinose production is synergistically promoted by the improved charge separation effi-ciency and extended visible-light absorption via localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of Au nanoparticles. This work demonstrates an example of a mechanism-guided catalyst design to improve biofuels/chemicals production from biomass photorefinery.(c) 2022 Science Press and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. and Science Press. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study demonstrates a feasible strategy to selectively produce arabinose via glucose oxidation using a gold nanoparticle-modified carbon nitride catalyst. The catalyst effectively regulates the electron transfer behavior, promoting the oxidation of glucose to gluconic acid, and enhances arabinose production through localized surface plasmon resonance.