Studying Electrocatalytic Activity Using Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy

Scanning electrochemical microscopy is an excellent tool for studying electrocatalytic reactions at the nanometer scale, although it has not been much utilized for this purpose. So far, most of the electrocatalysis studies reported using SECM are mainly focused on the relationship between bulk chemical composition and electrochemical activity. This article presents some examples of electrocatalytic reactions studied by SECM and reviews the progress on the use of SECM to study electrocatalytic reactions, paying special attention to studying the surface structure effect on nanoparticles and translating of single crystal electrode results into electrocatalysts based on shape-controlled nanoparticles. SECM currently does have some limitations in terms of resolution of the interrogated nanometric domains. Hence, in the future, it will be necessary to develop new combined electrochemical probe techniques and nanoprobes to overcome said limitations and perhaps approach probing electrocatalysis at the surface of a single nanoparticle.