Electroreduction of alpha-glucose on CNT/graphite electrode modified by Zn and Zn-Fe alloy

摘要

Electroreduction of ex-glucose to form sorbitol on Zn/CNTs and Zn alloy/CNTs electrodes has been investigated in this paper.Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) used in this paper are grown directly on graphite disks by chemical vapor deposition.Zn and Zn alloy are electrodeposited on the activated CNTs/graphite electrode by pulse galvanostatic method.The micrographs of Zn/CNTs and Zn alloy/CNTs electrodes are characterized by scanning electron microscopy.The results show that the current efficiency of alpha-glucose reduction on CNTs electrodes is much better than that on flat Zn electrodes.The order of the current efficiency on different electrodes is as follows:Zn/CNT (0.58) approx=Zn-Fe/ CNT (0.57)>Zn-Ni/CNT (0.43) approx=Zn/graphite (0.42) >Zn (0.40).It indicates that CNTs have good potential application in electrosynthesis.Additionally,effects of some operating parameters,such as pH,temperature and alpha-glucose concentration,on the current efficiency of alpha-glucose reduction are also discussed.