Martin Heinen

Surface Species and Product Distribution in the Electrooxidation of Small Organic Molecules

The electrooxidation of small organic molecules is known to proceed via more or less complex reaction networks, involving a number of stable, adsorbed or desorbed (volatile) reaction intermediates and side products in addition to the main product [1-4]. This is discussed for a number of C1 C3 molecules, in particular methanol and ethanol. The discussion is mainly based on own data, acquired by combined IR/DEMS measurements. These allow simultaneous in-situ IR measurements of the adsorbed species in an attenuated total reflection (ATRIR) configuration, mass spectrometric detection of volatile reaction intermediates and reaction products by differential electrochemical mass spectrometry (DEMS) under continuous electrolyte transport, in addition to the determination of the total reaction rate reflected by the Faradaic current [5].