2016 Volume 37 Issue 10 Pages 488-493
An electric double layer (EDL) formed at an electrolyte/electrode interface provides a steep potential slope which facilitates electrochemical reactions at the interface. This review paper summarizes recent our study on the structuring of liquid phase molecules at some electrolyte/electrode interfaces investigated using electrochemical frequency modulation AFM (EC-FM-AFM), which we developed to analyze such interfaces under electrode potential control for local information of the liquid side as well as atomic scale imaging of the solid side. It was found that the rigidness of the hydration layer at an aqueous electrolyte/graphite electrode interface was greatly affected by electrochemical potential and kinds of the electrolyte, which also affected the organization of adsorbed molecules at the interface. It was revealed that ionic liquids, promising electrolytes for electrochemical devices, showed different degree of structuring at the interfaces strongly dependent on the electrode materials. Such experimental results were supported by molecular dynamics (MD) calculations.
