Speaker
Description
Understanding the mechanisms of electrochemical reactions is essential for numerous applications, including the development of efficient electrocatalysts, redox flow batteries, and electrosynthesis processes. Traditional techniques like voltammetry and bulk electrolysis, while useful, offer limited molecular-level insights into these reactions. As a result, complementary spectroscopic methods are often needed to fully elucidate the mechanisms of electrocatalytic reactions at the molecular level.
Online coupling of electrospray mass spectrometric technique to the electrochemical methods provides a unique strategy in achieving the detailed molecular-level perspective in electrochemical reactions. During the presentation, I will show the key features that make electrochemistry-electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (EC-ESI-MS) a powerful technique for studying electrochemical reactions.[2] These include: transferring reaction intermediates from solution to the gas phase, which eliminates solution-phase interference and enables the detection of short-lived species, utilizing established mass spectrometric methods for complete characterization of intermediates; and allowing simultaneous monitoring of multiple interacting pathways in electrochemical reactions. I will focus on specific examples, such as the electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 and O2,[1] where EC-ESI-MS was instrumental in identifying reaction intermediates, tracking catalyst activation-deactivation, and observing changes to the catalyst itself during the reactions.
