Hydrogen is increasingly viewed as a game-changer in the clean energy sector. Renewable hydrogen production from water is industrialized by integrating water electrolysis and renewable electricity, but the current cost of water-born hydrogen remains high though. An ideal scenario would be to produce value-added chemicals along with hydrogen so the cost can be partially offset. Herein, facilitated bio-hydrogen extraction and biomass-derived chemical formation from sugar-derived 5-hydroxymethyfurfural (HMF) were achieved via the in-situ transformation of cobalt-bound electrocatalysts. The cyanide-bound cobalt hydroxide exhibited a low voltage at 1.55 V at 10 mA cm−2 for bio-hydrogen production, compared with an iridium catalyst (1.75 V). The interaction between the biomass intermediate and the cyanide ligand is suggested to be responsible for the improved activity.
