| Abstract Scope |
Electrocatalytic reactions are highly dependent on the physical interactions between the catalytic material and the reaction intermediates. The kinetics associated with such reactions are often sluggish, leading to high overpotentials, low energy efficiency, and high cost. While the effects of electrocatalyst composition, morphology, and surface area have been well-investigated, much less is known about the effect of physical confinement on electrochemical reaction kinetics. This is largely because confinement changes are difficult to decouple from other host properties that may simultaneously change, such as surface area or electronic structure. We propose that layered materials are ideally suited templates for investigating the fundamental effects of confinement on electrochemical reactivity. In particular, TiS2 is a conductive intercalation host material with flexible interlayer chemistry for accommodating redox-active metallocenes. This presentation will describe the synthesis of TiS2/metallocene hybrid materials and compare the electrochemical behavior of the metallocene under confinement by TiS2 vs. in the electrolyte. |