Real-Time Mass Spectrometry for Simultaneous Monitoring of Electrode Dissolution and Reaction Product Distribution during Organic Electrosynthesis

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An organic electrosynthesis is an emerging tool for modern chemical manufacturing fitting the environmental and sustainability agenda. It utilizes polarized electrode surfaces as “traceless” oxidants or reductants, whereas its heterogeneous nature and exceptional tunability enable easy access to radical intermediates and novel mechanistic pathways. In the line of further energy input improvement, there is a growing demand for appropriate catalytic materials devoted to organic molecule transformations, for which the activity and selectivity have so far been most studied. Although the investigation of electrodes’ and electrocatalysts’ stability in the field of electrochemical energy conversion is well-established, there is still a lack of attention to the symmetrical studies for organic electrosynthesis. Nevertheless, electrode material losses shorten the reactor’s lifetime and can cause metal cathodic re-depositions, severely altering reaction product selectivity and final product contaminations. Although some reports on the ex-cell metal dissolution analysis are available, no information about its mechanism can be gained in such a way. To highlight the issue numerically, an analytical method to characterize rates and mechanisms of catalyst dissolution within a real-time response-enabled potential-, temperature-, or time-resolved parametrization of the electrocatalyst is highly demanded.Herein we present a system to study organic electrosynthetic protocols under dynamic operations to quantitatively monitor the electrode dissolution aligned with reaction products during organic molecules transformations. The instrument comprises an electrochemical flow cell (EFC) with exchangeable working electrodes, the outlet of which is interfaced with an online quadrupole mass spectrometer (OQMS) for the analysis of extracted by solid membrane gaseous products and an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) for the detection of dissolved metals. The system is exemplified by a benchmark Kolbe electrolysis over platinum Pt anode, commonly considered a stable and inert electrode material. Based on the literature, methanol has been used as a solvent of choice, while partially neutralized acetic acids with different bases were studied as objects. The methodology shed some light on understanding the role of platinum oxide formation on the electrode surface and can be used to study time- and potential-resolved catalyst stability and the possibility for dissolved transition metal-catalyzed electroorganic transformations.