Extrinsically energized chemistry in electrocatalysis

Abstract

Electrochemistry is highly involved in several sustainable technologies for addressing pressing energy and environmental concerns. However, common strategies for electrochemical system improvement focused solely on have been reaching limitations. External field-coupled electrocatalysis (EFCE) presents its ability to exceed the inherent scaling relationship limitations by extrinsically energized chemistry. We propose external field-energized chemical descriptors of charge density and electrochemical potential, activation energy, mass transfer, and high-energy species in EFCE processes. According to this classification, the summary and discussion of in-depth mechanisms, material designs and integration manners of six EFCE processes are provided with critically selected research works. Finally, we highlight that among opportunities and challenges in this next-generation electrocatalysis process, multiple external fields-coupled electrocatalysis holds high promise to fulfill the external field-energized chemical descriptors to the maximum in EFCE with more degree of freedom.