Efficient electrocatalytic OOH production on P–N–CuO for selective cleavage of lignin C–C bonds in the photoelectric collaborative system

[Display omitted] •The oxidizing and reducing groups are firstly separated in space by photoelectric coordination method.•P-doped CuO was used as electrocatalyst for directional and controllable generation of OOH free radicals.•A new mechanism to break C–C bond by the combination of Cβ and OOH was proposed. Due to the mutual quenching of oxidizing groups and reducing groups, the yield of photocatalytic lignin cracking is not satisfactory. In this work, the oxidizing and reducing groups were separated in space by the method of photoelectric collaborative for the first time. The conversion rate of 2-phenoxy-1-phenylethanol (pp-ol) could be increased by 129.00 % and 31.47 % and the yield of benzoic acid and benzaldehyde increased by up to 19.56 % and 119.95 % in the photoelectric collaborative system compared with individual electrocatalysis and photocatalysis. P-doped N–CuO was used as electrocatalyst for directional and controllable generation of OOH free radicals, while g-C3N4 was used as photocatalyst to produce Cβ free radicals. For the mechanism, a new path of OOH and Cβ combining to fracture pp-ol was opened up. This work provides a new method to cracking lignin and used for aromatics production from renewable biomass feedstocks.