Nanoscale electrochemistry Available to Purchase

Nanoscale electrochemistry. Although rechargeable batteries and fuel cells have been increasingly considered for or used in mobile electronic devices and electric vehicles, they have not been adopted for large-scale energy-storage and power generation primarily because their energy and power densities are still orders of magnitude below hydrocarbon fuels. Those densities can be greatly improved in metal–air batteries and fuel cells that tap an unlimited supply of environmental oxygen. Studies have shown that the reduction and formation of molecular oxygen in an electrochemical process play a significant role in limiting the efficiencies of those technologies, but insight into the dynamics of those reactions has been hindered by an inability to probe and model them on the nanoscale. Now, researchers from the US, Germany, and Ukraine, led by Sergei Kalinin at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have employed a scanning probe microscope to map local electrochemical activity on a surface by tracing the...