Decoupling Conductivity, Heterogeneous Electron Transfer Rate, and Diffusion in Organic Molecular Electrocatalysis: Oxygen Reduction Reaction on Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)Show others and affiliations
2025 (English)In: Small, ISSN 1613-6810, E-ISSN 1613-6829, Vol. 21, no 5, article id 2409471Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
The electrified production of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) by oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is attractive to increase the sustainability of chemical industry. Here the same chains of intrinsically conductive polymer, poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) are utilized, as ORR electrocatalyst, while varying polymeric primary dopants (PSS and Nafion) and the level of secondary doping with DMSO. These changes modulate various properties of the film, such as its microscale organization and electronic conductivity. The aim here is to clearly decouple the rate of the heterogeneous electron transfer (HET) of ORR from the diffusion affected by electronic conductivity and the electrochemically available surface area. It is found that the rate of HET and the double layer capacitance are significantly affected by primary dopant. On the contrary, secondary doping shows very little effect on the rate of HET. However, such secondary doping resulted in the increase of both electrochemically available surface area and the diffusion through the polymer film. This effect is attributed to a few orders increase of the electronic conductivity in the film improving availability of the polymer for electron transfer. The enhancement of diffusion upon the secondary doping of conducting polymer is utilized to improve direct conversion of air into H2O2 on gas diffusion electrode.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
John Wiley and Sons Inc , 2025. Vol. 21, no 5, article id 2409471
Keywords [en]
Conducting polymers; Conductive plastics; Decay (organic); Doping (additives); Elastomers; Electrolysis; Electrolytic reduction; Ionomers; Oxygen reduction reaction; Petroleum tar; Photodissociation; Photoionization; Thermal diffusion in gases; Transparent conducting oxides; 4-ethylenedioxythiophene); Electronic conductivity; Ethylenedioxythiophenes; Heterogeneous electron transfer; Nafions; Oxygen reduction reaction; Poly(3, poly(styrenesulphonate); Poly(styrene sulfonate); Secondary doping; Surface area; Chemical industry
National Category
Chemical Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-76463DOI: 10.1002/smll.202409471Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85212110448OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-76463DiVA, id: diva2:1932411
Note
The authors thank VINNOVA (Digital Cellulose Center), the Knut and Al-ice Wallenberg foundation (KAW 2019.0604, KAW 2021.0195, WallenbergWood Science Center (WWSC), Wallenberg Initiative Materials Sciencefor Sustainability (WISE), KAW Project Grant 2018 “Hydrogen PeroxideFuel and Energy Technology for the Future”), the Swedish Energy Agency(52023-1), Vetenskapsrådet (2016-05990, 2019–05577) for financial fund-ing. T.-P.R. acknowledges support from the Research Council of Finland(postdoctoral fellowship no. 320165, Finnish Center of Excellence programon Life-Inspired Materials LIBER no. 346107, and the Finnish Flagshipprogram on Photonics Research and Innovation PREIN no. 320165) andthe EU H2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 101022777.The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) and the NWO areacknowledged for providing beam time at the Dutch−Belgian beamline(DUBBLE), station BM26B
2025-01-292025-01-292025-09-23Bibliographically approved