Ethylene glycol is currently produced via an energy-intensive two-step thermocatalytic process that results in substantial CO₂ emissions. Sustainable ethylene glycol production via ethylene electro-oxidation powered by renewable electricity is desirable; however, direct ethylene electro-oxidation suffers from unsatisfactory product selectivity, particularly at high production rates. Here we report a cascade strategy for efficient and selective production of pure ethylene glycol solution under ambient conditions with no detectable by-product formation. Specifically, ethylene is converted to ethylene glycol on a catalyst/solid-acid composite using electrochemically generated hydrogen peroxide as the oxidant. Using an integrated solid-electrolyte reactor, we achieved high electron utilization efficiency of 60–70% at industrially relevant current densities (100–500 mA cm⁻²) for ethylene glycol production with full product selectivity (~100%). We further integrated this system with a CO₂ electroreduction reactor and demonstrated the sustainable production of pure ethylene glycol using CO₂ and water as the only feedstocks.

乙二醇目前通过能源密集型两步热催化工艺生产，会产生大量 CO ₂排放。通过由可再生电力驱动的乙烯电氧化来可持续生产乙二醇是可取的；然而，直接乙烯电氧化的产物选择性不令人满意，特别是在高生产率的情况下。在这里，我们报告了一种在环境条件下高效、选择性生产纯乙二醇溶液的级联策略，且没有可检测到的副产物形成。具体而言，使用电化学产生的过氧化氢作为氧化剂，在催化剂/固体酸复合物上将乙烯转化为乙二醇。使用集成固体电解质反应器，我们在工业相关电流密度（100–500 mA cm ^-2）用于乙二醇生产，具有完整的产品选择性（~100%）。我们进一步将该系统与CO _{2电还原反应器集成，并演示了使用CO 2}和水作为唯一原料可持续生产纯乙二醇。