EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Wien effect in interfacial water dissociation through proton-permeable graphene electrodes

J. Cai, E. Griffin, V. H. Guarochico-Moreira, D. Barry, B. Xin, M. Yagmurcukardes, S. Zhang, A. K. Geim, F. M. Peeters and M. Lozada-Hidalgo ()
Additional contact information
J. Cai: The University of Manchester
E. Griffin: The University of Manchester
V. H. Guarochico-Moreira: The University of Manchester
D. Barry: The University of Manchester
B. Xin: The University of Manchester
M. Yagmurcukardes: Universiteit Antwerpen
S. Zhang: Tianjin University
A. K. Geim: The University of Manchester
F. M. Peeters: Universiteit Antwerpen
M. Lozada-Hidalgo: The University of Manchester

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Strong electric fields can accelerate molecular dissociation reactions. The phenomenon known as the Wien effect was previously observed using high-voltage electrolysis cells that produced fields of about 107 V m−1, sufficient to accelerate the dissociation of weakly bound molecules (e.g., organics and weak electrolytes). The observation of the Wien effect for the common case of water dissociation (H2O $$\leftrightarrows$$ ⇆ H+ + OH−) has remained elusive. Here we study the dissociation of interfacial water adjacent to proton-permeable graphene electrodes and observe strong acceleration of the reaction in fields reaching above 108 V m−1. The use of graphene electrodes allows measuring the proton currents arising exclusively from the dissociation of interfacial water, while the electric field driving the reaction is monitored through the carrier density induced in graphene by the same field. The observed exponential increase in proton currents is in quantitative agreement with Onsager’s theory. Our results also demonstrate that graphene electrodes can be valuable for the investigation of various interfacial phenomena involving proton transport.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-33451-1 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-33451-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-33451-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-33451-1