In 2023, around 16 billion liters of biodiesel and HVO diesel were produced in the European Union, based on maize, rapeseed, or partially on waste materials from agricultural production. A by-product of biodiesel production is glycerol, which can be used as a building block for the production of valuable chemicals such as dihydroxyacetone, formic acid, glyceraldehyde and glycolaldehyde via a glycerol oxidation reaction (GOR). Glycerol can be oxidized electrochemically in (photo)electrochemical (PEC) reactors, which are currently being developed specifically for the production of green hydrogen.
