(Keynote) Electrochemical Proton-Coupled Electron Transfer Theory

Proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) plays a vital role in a wide range of electrochemical processes. This talk will describe theoretical and computational methods that have been developed to study electrochemical PCET and a variety of applications to molecular and heterogeneous electrocatalysis. My group has formulated a general PCET theory that includes the quantum mechanical effects of the electrons and transferring protons, as well as the motions of the donor-acceptor modes and solvent or protein environment. This PCET theory enables the calculation of rate constants and kinetic isotope effects for comparison to experiment. Our extension of this theory to electrochemical PCET incorporates the electronic structure of the electrode and the interfacial electric fields arising from the electrical double layer. Theoretical formulations for both homogeneous and heterogeneous electrochemical PCET provide analytical expressions for the rate constants and current densities as functions of applied potential. This theory has been applied to proton discharge on metal electrodes, as well as PCET at metal oxides and graphite-conjugated catalysts. These applications highlight the importance of using a theory that quantizes the transferring proton and includes the effects of hydrogen tunneling and excited electron-proton vibronic states. The insights from these theoretical studies are useful for the design of electrocatalytic systems to control the movement and coupling of electrons and protons for energy conversion processes. References Venkataraman, A. V. Soudackov, and S. Hammes-Schiffer, Theoretical formulation of nonadiabatic electrochemical proton-coupled electron transfer at metal-solution interfaces, J. Phys. Chem. C 112 , 12386-12397 (2008). K. Goldsmith, Y. C. Lam, A V. Soudackov, and S. Hammes-Schiffer, Proton discharge on a gold electrode from triethylammonium in acetonitrile: Theoretical modeling of potential-dependent kinetic isotope effects, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 141 , 1084-1090 (2019). C. Lam, A. V. Soudackov, and S. Hammes-Schiffer, Kinetics of proton discharge on metal electrodes: Effects of vibrational nonadiabaticity and solvent dynamics, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 10 , 5312-5217 (2019). E. Warburton, P. Hutchison, M. N. Jackson, M. L. Pegis, Y. Surendranath, and S. Hammes-Schiffer, “Interfacial field-driven proton-coupled electron transfer at graphite-conjugated organic acids,” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 142 , 20855-20864 (2020). E. Warburton, A. V. Soudackov, and S. Hammes-Schiffer, Theoretical modeling of electrochemical proton-coupled electron transfer, Chem. Rev. 122 , 10599-10650 (2022).