Potential Screening at Electrode/Ionic Liquid Interfaces from In Situ X‐ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy

A new approach to investigate potential screening at the interface of ionic liquids (ILs) and charged electrodes in a two-electrode electrochemical cell by in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy has been introduced. Using identical electrodes, we deduce the potential screening at the working and t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Greco, Francesco, Shin, Sunghwan, Williams, Federico José, Heller, Bettina S. J., Maier, Florian, Steinrück, Hans Peter
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2019
País:Argentina
Institución:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repositorio:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/123712
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/123712
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:BINDING ENERGIES
ELECTRODES
IONIC LIQUIDS
PHOTOELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY
POTENTIAL SCREENING
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.4
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1
Descripción
Sumario:A new approach to investigate potential screening at the interface of ionic liquids (ILs) and charged electrodes in a two-electrode electrochemical cell by in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy has been introduced. Using identical electrodes, we deduce the potential screening at the working and the counter electrodes as a function of applied voltage from the potential change of the bulk IL, as derived from corresponding core level binding energy shifts for different IL/electrode combinations. For imidazolium-based ILs and Pt electrodes, we find a significantly larger potential screening at the anode than at the cathode, which we attribute to strong attractive interactions between the imidazolium cation and Pt. In the absence of specific ion/electrode interactions, asymmetric potential screening only occurs for ILs with different cation and anion sizes as demonstrated for an imidazolium chloride IL and Au electrodes, which we assign to the different thicknesses of the electrical double layers. Our results imply that potential screening in ILs is mainly established by a single layer of counterions at the electrode.