The wide deployment of electrocatalytic hydrogenation may be hindered by intrinsic limitations, including substrate solubility and difficult separation of the products from the electrolyte. The use of palladium membrane electrodes can overcome the aforementioned limitations by physically separating the formation of reactive hydrogen atoms from the hydrogenation of unsaturated organic substrates. Here, by taking advantage of the low-potential oxidation of formaldehyde on a palladium membrane anode to produce hydrogen that can permeate through the membrane electrode, we demonstrate that electrocatalytic dual hydrogenation of unsaturated dicarboxylic acids is possible when another palladium membrane electrode is also adopted as the cathode. Such a design enables the electrocatalytic hydrogenation of the same substrate at both the anode and cathode in two separated chambers spatially isolated from the electrochemical cell with a theoretical maximum Faradaic efficiency of 200%.

电催化氢化的广泛应用可能受到内在限制的阻碍，包括底物溶解度和产物与电解质的分离困难。使用钯膜电极可以通过将活性氢原子的形成与不饱和有机底物的氢化物理分离来克服上述限制。在这里，通过利用钯膜阳极上甲醛的低电位氧化产生可以渗透膜电极的氢气，我们证明了当另一个钯膜电极也被采用时，不饱和二羧酸的电催化双氢化是可能的阴极。