Carbon quantum dots for hydrogen peroxide production

Hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) is a versatile chemical with extensive applications across chemical production, environmental protection, healthcare, and energy sectors due to its strong oxidative properties and environmentally benign decomposition products. Despite its industrial significance, conventional production methods, particularly the anthraquinone process, face challenges including high energy consumption, safety risks, and environmental concerns. Emerging approaches such as direct synthesis, electrochemical methods, piezocatalysis, plasma, and photocatalysis offer alternative routes, yet limitations such as low selectivity, slow charge transfer, and catalyst instability persist. Carbon quantum dots (CQDs), particularly their heteroatom-doped variants, have recently attracted attention as efficient and environmentally friendly catalysts for H₂O₂ generation. Owing to their high surface area, tunable electronic structure, abundant functional groups, and excellent charge separation capabilities, they enhance photocatalytic, piezocatalysis, and electrocatalytic H₂O₂ production. This review examines each H₂O₂ production route, presenting a systematic analysis of their mechanisms, recent advances, strengths and weaknesses, techno-economic considerations, and key bottlenecks that must be overcome for scale-up. Also, this review describes CQD synthesis methods and properties and critically evaluates the role of CQDs in improving H₂O₂ generation efficiency. Furthermore, patent and bibliometric analyses are presented to elucidate current research trends and technological developments. By integrating fundamental principles, material innovations, and practical applications, this review provides a valuable resource for advancing CQD-assisted H₂O₂ production technologies.

Zahra Amiri, Ali Bakhshi, Mobin Safarzadeh Khosrowshahi, Mahdi Davari Dolatabadi, Hadi Shayesteh. Carbon quantum dots for hydrogen peroxide production. Sustainable Materials and Technologies (2026), e01852. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.susmat.2026.e01852

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