Stabilizing *OH intermediate by fabricating Ni₃N-MoN for scalable 5-hydroxymethylfurfural electrooxidation

Achieving large-scale coupling of organic electrooxidation and the hydrogen evolution reaction, while understanding the competition between organic electrooxidation and oxygen evolution reaction (OER), is a significant challenge. In this study, using Ni₃N-MoN/NF, an efficient heterojunction electrocatalyst as both anode and cathode in a 50 cm² continuous flow reactor, we achieved a total current of ~20 A at 2.6 V. This resulted in the highest single-pass 5-hydroxymethylfurfural conversion efficiency (0.049 mmol cm⁻² min⁻¹) and gram-level production of 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid. Theoretical studies revealed that MoN accelerated *OH formation and increased its deprotonation energy barrier, leading to *OH accumulation, effectively promoting organic electrooxidation and inhibiting OER. We anticipate that our foundation in understanding the reaction mechanism and catalyst design strategy can be extended to a wider range of anodic oxidation reactions.