Dear Colleagues,

Rising demands for energy coupled with concerns over environmental pollution and growing fossil fuel costs have contributed to a great need for clean and efficient power sources. To achieve the goal of reducing more than 50% of CO₂ emissions in the year 2050 compared to CO₂ emissions in 2009, as proposed by International Energy Agency (IEA), the transportation sector must reduce CO₂ emission dramatically. It is very clear that simply improving efficiency of internal combustion engines that is subject to Carnot cycle limitations will not be able to achieve such a goal. Thus, another high efficient energy conversion device as alternative to internal combustion engine or another fuel as alternative to gasoline is highly demanded in order to reduce CO₂ emissions.

Electrochemical oxidation of small organic molecules is regarded as the most promising technology due to its high thermodynamic efficiency (up to 97%) via low temperature direct fuel cell reaction. Compared with hydrogen, room temperature liquid alcohols such as ethanol and methanol are more promising in fuel cell devices for their high volumetric energy densities, better safety and low-cost generation and storage. While many exciting works have been reported, there is much to be done to further understand the structure-property relationship in the electro-oxidation of ethanol and methanol. 

The aim of this Special Issue is to cover recent research progress in the fields of electro-oxidation of alcohols including but not limited to methanol and ethanol, especially research effort in fundamental understanding the effects of the atomic structures of the catalysts on the reactivity, selectivity and durability of the electro-catalytic processes using advanced theoretical and experimental approaches. The research results on the electro-catalytic process for the production of both electricity and chemicals are also welcome for submission.

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Catalysts is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Electro-oxidation
• Ethanol fuel
• Methanol fuel
• Structure characterization
• Reaction mechanism
• Reactivity
• Selectivity