Owing to their unique electronic properties, precious metal catalysts (PMC) such as Group VIII metals have long offered excellent catalytic activity, selectivity and stability for a wide variety of chemistries. Unfortunately, the desirable catalytic performance of PMCs comes with a significant economic cost, hampering the realization of sustainable technologies such as biomass upgrading or solar fuels that rely on PMCs. The search for affordable catalysts therefore remains a significant endeavor in catalytic science, with potential to solve the century’s grand challenge of energy sustainability. The discovery of new catalysts through material design is limited by the Sabatier principle, which relates catalytic activity and the binding energy of a key reaction intermediate through an inverse parabolic function. Here we demonstrate the use of electrochemical systems as a binding energy modulation platform by which to overcome the thermodynamic limitations posed by material design alone, where electric fields are able to selectively tune the binding energy of key reaction intermediates.

Electrochemical systems as binding energy modulation platforms for non-faradaic reactions

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.