Nanostructure Determines the Wettability of Gold Surfaces by Ionic Liquid Ultrathin Films

Ionic liquids are employed in energy storage/harvesting devices, in catalysis and biomedical technologies, due to their tunable bulk and interfacial properties. In particular, the wettability and the structuring of the ionic liquids at the interface are of paramount importance for all those applications exploiting ionic liquids tribological properties, their double layer organization at electrified interfaces, and interfacial chemical reactions. Here we report an experimental investigation of the wettability and organization at the interface of an imidazolium-based ionic liquid ([Bmim][NTf2]) and gold surfaces, that are widely used as electrodes in energy devices, electronics, fluidics. In particular, we investigated the role of the nanostructure on the resulting interfacial interactions between [Bmim][NTf2] and atom-assembled or cluster-assembled gold thin films. Our results highlight the presence of the solid-like structured ionic liquid domains extending several tens of nanometres far from the gold interfaces, and characterized by different lateral extension, according to the wettability of the gold nanostructures by the IL liquid-phase.

A coupled conductor of ionic liquid with Ti3C2 MXene to improve electrochemical properties

Ionic–electronic coupling activates the “inert” F terminations and banishes the undesired overscreening charge effect from the electrified interfaces to achieve high electrochemical performances.

Perspective on experimental evaluation of adsorption energies at solid/liquid interfaces

Almost 15 years ago, first papers appeared, in which the density functional theory (DFT) was used to predict activity trends of electrocatalytic reactions. That was a major contribution of computational chemistry in building the theory of electrocatalysis. The possibility of computational electrocatalyst design had a massive impact on the way of thinking in modern electrocatalysis. At the same time, substantial criticism towards popular DFT models was developed during the years, due to the oversimplified view on electrified interfaces. Having this in mind, this work proposes an experimental methodology for quantitative description of adsorption energies at solid/liquid interfaces based on the Kelvin probe technique. The introduced approach already gives valuable trends in adsorption energies while in the future should evolve into an additional source of robust values that could complement existing DFT results. The pillars of the new methodology are established and verified experimentally with very promising initial results.