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In the chemical industry, formaldehyde is an important bulk chemical. The traditional synthesis of formaldehyde involves an energy intensive oxidation of methanol over a metal oxide catalyst. The selective electrochemical oxidation of methanol is challenging. Herein, we report a catalytic system with an immobilized TEMPO electrode that selectively oxidizes methanol to formaldehyde with high turnover numbers. Upon the addition of various organic and inorganic bases, the activity of the catalyst could be tuned. The highest Faradaic efficiency that was achieved was 97.5 %, the highest turnover number was 17100. Additionally, we found that the rate determining step changed from the step in which the carbonyl specie is created from the methanol‐TEMPO adduct to the oxidative regeneration of the TEMPO+ species. Finally, we showed that the system could be applied to the oxidation of other aliphatic alcohols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The synergy between catalysis and plasma chemistry often enhances the yield of chemical reactions in plasma-driven reactors. In the case of CO2 splitting into CO and O2, no positive synergistic effect was observed in earlier studies with plasma reactors, except for dielectric barrier discharges, that do not have a high yield and a high efficiency. Here, we demonstrate that introducing metal meshes into radio frequency-driven plasma reactors increases the relative reaction yield by 20%–50%, while supported metal oxide catalysts in the same setups have no effect. We attribute this to the double role of the metal mesh, which acts both as a catalyst for direct CO2 dissociation as well as for oxygen recombination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]