ELECTROCATALYSIS Interfacing electrochemistry

A symposium on Electrocatalysis and Interfacial Electrochemistry for Energy Conversion and Storage was held in 2012 at Materials Research Society Fall Meeting in Boston. Jan Rossmeisl outlined a computational approach for understanding the electrochemical activity of a surface for both these reactions in acidic environments. He clearly showed that the interaction between the substrate and the reactants, intermediates and products has to be optimized for the reactions to proceed effectively. Karl Mayrhofer showed that it is possible to monitor in situ the dissolution of platinum atoms that takes place during the reduction of platinum oxide largely due to the development of a plasma mass spectrometer method. Thomas Jaramillo illustrated that electrocatalytic reduction of CO2 to fuels could play an important role in our energy future. By quantifying the turnover frequencies for each product, his group was able to develop the reaction network and propose the mechanism that can explain the diverse array of the products.