Surfactant enhanced Cuδ+ and induced electrostatic force promoted dechlorination for deuteroacetic acid electrosynthesis with D2O

Surfactant enhanced Cuδ+ and induced electrostatic force promoted dechlorination for deuteroacetic acid electrosynthesis with D2O | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Surfactant enhanced Cu δ+ and induced electrostatic force promoted dechlorination for deuteroacetic acid electrosynthesis with D 2 O Bin Zhang, Mengmei Qin, Meng He, Chuanqi Cheng, Rui Li, Cuibo Liu This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6543551/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 24 Nov, 2025 Read the published version in Nature Communications → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Electrocatalytic deuteron-dechlorination of trichloroacetic acid (TCAA) in D2O provides a green route to synthesize commercial acetic-d3 acid-d (AA-d4). Synthesizing AA-d4 with a high Faradaic efficiency (FE) and reaction rate is highly challenging because of the difficult C-Cl bond deuteration of the 2-monochloroacetic-2,2-d2 acid-d (MCAA-d3) intermediate. Here, a quaternary ammonium salt surfactant-modified low-coordination copper electrocatalyst was designed, achieving TCAA-to-AA-d4 with a 91% selectivity, 91% FE and 0.59 mmol h−1 reaction rate at -100 mA cm−2. Mechanistic and kinetics studies reveal that the surfactant enhances the adsorption of MCAA-d3 through the electrostatic force and heightens the electron deficiency of Cuδ+ sites, which accelerates the electron transfer and promotes the C-Cl bond activation, increasing the AA-d4 selectivity. Surfactant-caused low D2O coverage suppresses D2 formation, improving the FE. 1.84 g AA-d4 electrosynthesis with a 30 mmol h−1 reaction rate and 65% FE at 600 mA cm−2 and deuterated drug applications demonstrate promising potential. Physical sciences/Chemistry/Catalysis/Electrocatalysis Physical sciences/Chemistry/Green chemistry/Sustainability Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files QMMnatcommunSupplementaryInformation250428.pdf Supplementary Information Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 24 Nov, 2025 Read the published version in Nature Communications → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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