Interfaces for Organic Electrosynthesis

Our research team develops protocols for the transformation of organic compounds utilizing electrified solid-liquid interfaces. We aim to improve the understanding of the relationship between "electrode surface – bulk electrolyte" boundary properties and the overall reaction performance. Our goal is to determine pivotal parameters and enable knowledge-based tailoring of the efficient electrical to chemical energy conversion toward value-added chemicals.

The exceptional tunability of electrochemical processes comes with a price of extended experimentation to optimize many reaction parameters. Our team employs its own-developed electrochemical platform for high throughput experimentations, integrated with real-time product analysis for dynamic operations. It comprises a microfluidic electrochemical screening flow cell (SFC) capable of testing arrays of electrocatalysts and libraries of electrolyte compositions. Such a strategy overrides the commonly adopted "trial-an-error" or "one-variable-at-a-time" approach, providing valuable transients about the electrochemical interface performance, which are important for tailoring more efficient electrochemical protocols for fundamental and preparative applications.