De la Réactivité Electrochimique Aux Mécanismes Moléculaires (DREAMM)

From Electrochemical Reactivity to Molecular Mecanisms

Laure Fillaud, Suzanne Joiret, Ivan Lucas, Emmanuel Maisonhaute

Our group focuses on establishing new methods in order to decipher the electrochemical reactivity of complex molecular systems. We have complementary skills that allow us to purposely synthesize nanoparticles or molecules, to model mecanisms but also to invent original instrumentations to jump beyond the classical frontiers of electrochemistry.

Our main activities more specifically concern:

Micro and Nano-Raman spectroscopy

 

Many mecanisms cannot be solved solely with electrochemical experiments. Raman spectroscopy is a very efficient tool because it allows a chemical identification of the compounds that are formed. In addition, by combining it to local probe microscopies, informations at the nanometer level can be obtained.

 

 

 

 

 

Ultrafast electrochemistry

 

By using electrodes of micrometric dimensions, it is possible to reach scan rates as high as 2.5x10⁶ Vs^-1 , corresponding to a temporal resolution of a few tens of nanoseconds. Beyond the interest to characterize very unstable intermediates, this allows also to probe the efficiency of complex molecular systems such as dendrimers or rotaxanes in the context of molecular electronics.

 

 

 

 

 

Radiolysis and electrochemistry

 

Radiolysis is a very efficient tool to generate reactive species. In solution, mecanisms can be controlled to create specific objects such as nanoparticles. It is also possible to intercept the transient intermediates and to measure their redox properties with an electrode, in a complementary approach compared to the traditionnal spectroscopic one.