An electrocatalyst is a catalyst that participates in electrochemical reactions. Electrocatalysts are a specific form of catalysts that function at electrode surfaces or, most commonly, may be the electrode surface itself. An electrocatalyst can be heterogeneous such as a platinized electrode. Homogeneous electrocatalysts, which are soluble, assist in transferring electrons between the electrode and reactants, and/or facilitate an intermediate chemical transformation described by an overall half reaction. Major challenges in electrocatalysts focus on fuel cells.
The chloralkali process is a large scale application that uses electrocatalysts. This technology supplies most of the chlorine and sodium hydroxide required by many industries. The cathode is a mixed metal oxide clad titanium anode (also called a dimensionally stable anode).
Many organofluorine compounds are produced by electrofluorination. One manifestation of this technology is the Simons process, which can be described as:
R3C–H + HF → R3C–F + H2
In the course of a typical synthesis, this reaction occurs once for each C–H bond in the precursor. The cell potential is maintained near 5–6 V. The anode, the electrocatalyst, is nickel-plated.
Acrylonitrile is converted to adiponitrile on an industrial scale via electrocatalysis.
In general, a catalyst is an agent that increases the speed of a chemical reaction without being consumed by a reaction. Thermodynamically, a catalyst lowers the activation energy required for a chemical reaction to take place. An electrocatalyst is a catalyst that affects the activation energy of an electrochemical reaction. Shown below is the activation energy of chemical reactions as it relates to the energies of products and reactants. The activation energy in electrochemical processes is related to the potential, i.e. voltage, at which a reaction occurs. Thus, electrocatalysts frequently change the potential at which oxidation and reduction processes are observed.
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This course covers the fundamental and applied aspects of electrocatalysis related to renewable energy conversion and storage. The focus is on catalysis for hydrogen evolution, oxygen evolution, and C
The course is an introduction to heterogeneous catalysis for environmental protection and energy production. It focusses on catalytic exhaust gas cleaning as well as catalytic systems relevant for gas
The course is the continuation of Interfacial Electrochemistry of Metals and Semiconductors for Energy Conversion and Storage 1 â Fundamentals (CH-G1-603) and is focused, based on the material prese
In electrochemistry, Faraday efficiency (also called faradaic efficiency, faradaic yield, coulombic efficiency or current efficiency) describes the efficiency with which charge (electrons) is transferred in a system facilitating an electrochemical reaction. The word "Faraday" in this term has two interrelated aspects: first, the historic unit for charge is the faraday (F), but has since been replaced by the coulomb (C); and secondly, the related Faraday's constant (F) correlates charge with moles of matter and electrons (amount of substance).
In electrochemistry, overpotential is the potential difference (voltage) between a half-reaction's thermodynamically-determined reduction potential and the potential at which the redox event is experimentally observed. The term is directly related to a cell's voltage efficiency. In an electrolytic cell the existence of overpotential implies that the cell requires more energy than thermodynamically expected to drive a reaction. In a galvanic cell the existence of overpotential means less energy is recovered than thermodynamics predicts.
Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are a class of compounds consisting of metal clusters (also known as SBUs) coordinated to organic ligands to form one-, two-, or three-dimensional structures. The organic ligands included are sometimes referred to as "struts" or "linkers", one example being 1,4-benzenedicarboxylic acid (BDC). More formally, a metal–organic framework is an organic-inorganic porous extended structure. An extended structure is a structure whose sub-units occur in a constant ratio and are arranged in a repeating pattern.
It is of great interest to the energy community to understand how the mechano-physico-chemical phenomena that eventually lead to device degradation are related to the startup, operation, and shutdown phases. For electrocatalytic systems operating in liquid ...
Explores electrocatalysis for renewable energy storage, focusing on hydrogen and CO2 reactions, catalyst challenges, MoS2 potential, and computational design.
Explores chemical transformations in (photo) electrocatalytic materials, including interface engineering, CO₂ reduction, and advanced characterization techniques.
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Understanding metal surface reconstruction is of the utmost importance in electrocatalysis, as this phenomenon directly affects the nature of available active sites. However, its dynamic nature renders surface reconstruction notoriously difficult to study. ...
Precipitation of (bi)carbonate salts during the electrochemical CO2 reduction (CO2RR) has been identified as a major cause of degradation and one of the main challenges to be overcome before implementing this technology on the industrial scale. Recently, t ...