Electronic Tunneling as a Tool for Understanding Electrocatalysts Activity & Selectivity

Electrocatalysis uses an electrochemical potential as the driving force for chemical reactions by controlling the electron transfer rate to/from a catalyst. However this intrinsically couples the potential and charge transfer, which furthermore sets the local electric field, surface adsorption, activity and selectivity. By using an electronic tunneling barrier, this project will decouple the effects of potential from charge transfer, thus allowing for reaction selectivity that would otherwise never be possible.