Electrocatalysis

To rationally design electrocatalysts, detailed understanding of the interrelation between the electronic and atomistic structure of specific surface sites and their chemical reactivity is required. For example, the influence of domain boundaries between different catalytic materials or the importance of step edges in contrast to terraces has to be further elucidated on the (sub-)nanometer level. We employ a variety of state-of-the-art electrochemical spectroscopy methods to characterize electro-active surface sites and the site-specific and potential-dependent pathways of electrocatalytic processes to pave the way for the development of improved electrocatalysts.

_{Pfisterer, Jonas H. K.; Nattino, Francesco; Zhumaev, Ulmas E.; Breiner, Manuel; Feliu, Juan M.; Marzari, Nicola; Domke, Katrin F.
Role of OH Intermediates during the Au Oxide Electro-Reduction at Low pH Elucidated by Electrochemical Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy and Implicit Solvent Density Functional Theory
In: ACS Catalysis, Vol. 10, 2020, Nr. 21, pp. 12716 – 12726
DOI (Open Access)}

_{Pfisterer, Jonas H. K.; Baghernejad, Masoud; Giuzio, Giovanni; Domke, Katrin F.
Reactivity mapping of nanoscale defect chemistry under electrochemical reaction conditions
In: Nature Communications, Vol. 10, 2019, Nr. 1, 5702
DOI (Open Access)}