Authors
Ze-Long Liang, Rui Li, Zhen-Ting Wang, Jia-Can Lv, Xin-Min Ai, Qi Li, Ying-Ying Yu, Yang-Xi Wang, Fang-Ting Zhu, Qi-Fan Wang, Hang Xu, Bin Zhao
Published in
National science review. Volume 13. Issue 19. Pages nwag427. Epub Jul 11, 2026.
Abstract
As a pivotal industrial chemical, adipic acid (AA) is synthesizable through the electrocatalytic oxidation of cyclohexanol under ambient conditions, utilizing electrons as a clean oxidant. This approach circumvents the energy-intensive and environmentally detrimental nature of conventional petrochemical processes, thereby offering a sustainable alternative for AA production. However, existing electrocatalysts are often plagued by instability in alkaline media, and their structure-activity relationships remain poorly understood. Here, we report a novel [Ni36] nanocage-based metal-organic framework ([Ni9]-MOF) synthesized via a bottom-up strategy from discrete [Ni9]-clusters, exhibiting excellent stability under both strong alkaline (8 M NaOH) and acidic (1 M HCl) conditions. [Ni9]-MOF demonstrates superior AA production (0.1239 mmol h-1 cm-2 at 1.61 V), and maintains this high activity over 25 cycles with negligible loss, surpassing all prior high-performance catalysts in durability. Mechanistic studies reveal a three-step oxidation pathway via cyclohexanone, 2-hydroxycyclohexanone and 6-hydroxyadipic acid. Density functional theory calculations indicate the MOF framework enhances the charge density at the active [Ni9] site, accelerating reaction kinetics. This work not only provides a rational design strategy for constructing highly stable MOFs, but also presents the first MOF-based electrocatalyst for AA synthesis, opening new avenues for sustainable chemical production under mild conditions.
PMID:
42898770
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 20 Oct 2026.
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