Prof. Dr. Jana Roithova Radboud University, NL

Reaction Intermediates in Electrocatalysis

Understanding new chemical reactions requires the detection and characterization of reaction intermediates. One of the rising fields in catalysis is electrocatalysis. However, studying processes at the electrode-electrolyte interface remains challenging. Electron transfer reactions often produce charged species, making mass spectrometry a potentially powerful method for investigating these processes. However, the intermediates must be efficiently transferred to the gas phase of a mass spectrometer. In this lecture, I will present our approach for transferring and analyzing electrochemically generated intermediates, enabling the study of their reactivity and kinetics at the diffusion layer at the electrode. We further characterize these species using cryogenic ion spectroscopy, combining vibrational and electronic spectroscopy to gain structural insight into the reactive intermediates.