Electrocatalytic hydrogenation (ECH) is a powerful approach to generate high-value chemicals from unsaturated organics by using water as a hydrogen source. ECH of organic substrates is though hindered by the poor solubility of substrates in aqueous conditions, by ohmic losses in organic electrolytes and generally by complex work-up and moderate faradaic efficiency. We show here that a Pickering emulsion that separates organic substrates and aqueous electrolytes in different phases proceeds to efficient ECH at the interface. We developed a hybrid design based of Pd nanoparticles supported on positively charged carbon nanotubes that places at the interface and acts both as emulsion stabilizer and electrocatalyst. In ECH of styrene, the system produces ethylbenzene with high faradaic efficiency (95.0%) and Pd specific current density (–148.1 mA.mg<sub>Pd</sub><sup>–1</sup>). From mechanistic investigation, we could disclose that the hydrogenation process is not an electrochemically assisted thermal one, but indeed electrocatalytic in nature. Our system combines good solubility of the substrates, high conductivity, facile product isolation and applies to the transformation of various alkenes. This strategy may thus provide original solutions to the ECH of substrates having low water-solubility.

Electrocatalytic hydrogenation of alkenes at an oil-water interface

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