Collision electrochemistry: A simple methodology for investigating complex processes

Abstract

Despite the apparent simplicity of collision electrochemistry, recent studies have demonstrated that the transient responses often exhibit a high degree of complexity. This complexity originates either from a temporal evolution of the current transient or from the combination of distinct processes occurring simultaneously. Unraveling these current blips and their progression over time allowed revealing various processes such as growth, morphology transformation, complex electrocatalytic mechanisms, and simultaneous reactions at the single-entity level. However, this level of complexity might lead to misinterpretation if the interfacial interactions are not properly understood. In this review, we summarize the recent studies aiming at investigating operando the evolution of colloidal solutions and resolving concomitant processes by collision electrochemistry. Next, we discuss studies that report the role of interfacial interactions that could possibly blur the observation of such complex events. To this end, we particularly highlight the advantages of correlative approaches to collect crucial complementary information.