With a Little Help from My Friends: New Ways of Seeing Electrochemistry

Speaker: Prof Patrick Unwin, University of Warwick

Electrochemistry has fascinated scientists for centuries. In the early 19th century, Humphry Davy called the invention of the battery (Volta’s pile) ‘an alarm call to experimenters’ across Europe and he went on to use electrochemistry to discover a number of alkali and alkaline earth metals. In the 21st century electrochemistry may help to save the planet, through innovations in technologies for energy storage and utilization.

At the same time, electrochemical devices are increasingly found in diagnostic and wearable sensors, there is renewed interest in electrosynthesis, and in understanding the role of electrical and electrochemical signaling in biological processes. Electrochemistry is important and its impact is broad! Electrodes and electrode materials used for electrochemistry are complex and heterogeneous – we can see this on a range of length scales through amazing microscopes. Yet, the electrochemical activity of electrodes and electrochemical cells has been measured in the same way for more than half a century – as an average (net) response.

A key thesis of our work is that complex electrode surfaces can be broken down and studied as set of simpler “single entities” (e.g., individual steps, terraces, defects, crystal facets, grain boundaries, single particles), and the nanoscale understanding of reactivity that results can then be used to create scalable models for electrochemical interfaces that will ultimately facilitate the rational design of electrochemical devices, with applications that span battery science, membranes, electrocatalysts and corrosion science. The journey to nanoscale structure-activity has been a ‘long and winding road’, but we can now finally visualize the activity of electrodes as ‘activity maps’ or ‘activity movies’, providing a new way of seeing electrochemistry in action. During the lecture, I will also talk about challenging dogma, and highlight contributions to this scientific journey from fabulous students, researchers, colleagues and friends, alongside inspiration from personalities in other areas.

This talk is part of the SciSoc – Cambridge University Scientific Society series.