Welcome
Join us in Edinburgh, or online, in July 2023 for this addition to our Faraday Discussion series. For over 100 years and 300 meetings, Faraday Discussions have been the forefront of physical chemistry. Many of these Discussions have become landmark meetings in their field.On behalf of our committee, we look forward to welcoming you to Edinburgh.
Shelley Minteer
Organising Committee Chair
Format of the discussion
Faraday Discussions have a special format where primary research papers written by the speakers are distributed to all participants before the meeting, and most of the meeting is devoted to discussing the papers. All delegates at the meeting, not just speakers, have the opportunity to make comments, ask questions, or present complementary or contradictory measurements and calculations during the discussion sessions. In addition, there is a dedicated poster session where further discussion takes place. The research papers and a record of the discussion are published in the journal Faraday Discussions.Find out more about the Faraday Discussions in the video available in the useful links.
Themes
Organic electrosynthesis initially emerged in the field of synthetic chemistry as an intrinsically green method to replace hazardous chemicals by electrons for oxidations and reductions. In recent years it has been shown to offer unique opportunities to increase conversion efficiencies and synthesize new molecules that are not accessible thermochemically or photochemically and not accessible from petroleum. It can also be used to streamline biocatalysis and chemocatalysis in biorefineries, manufacture chemicals from regional- and community-scale quantities of agricultural waste, and in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries to access fine chemicals in a more efficient and sustainable fashion. Nevertheless, many of these efforts remain exploratory as a fundamental understanding of the elementary processes involved in these transformations is still lacking. This meeting will bring together synthetic chemists, physical chemists, material scientists, electrochemists, computational scientists, and engineers to harness the transformative knowledge required to develop this technology.Organic electrosynthesis
In this session we will address some of the key challenges in the field, which include developing materials for improving selectivity of electrosynthesis, eliminating the use/need for sacrificial electrodes, and acquiring a fundamental understanding of and interrogating the electrode/solution interface. We will focus on new novel transformations that can only be accomplished by electrosynthesis and the interfacial strategies for improving selectivity.
Organic Electrosynthesis II
This will be a continuation of Session 1 with a stronger focus on the fundamental electrochemistry in these systems. Since most of these systems require a coupled homogeneous reaction mechanism, this session will include strategies to study and simulate mechanisms, as well as computational strategies for predicting chemistry, mechanism, and selectivity.
Electrofuels
Although organic electrosynthesis is primarily focused on fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals, there is also a large group focused on the production of fuels via proton reduction, carbon dioxide reduction, and nitrogen reduction. These reductive transformations are challenging in terms of stable electrode interfaces and selectivity. In this session we will discuss catalyst design for molecular, nanomaterials, and biological catalysts, in-situ and operando techniques for studying the electrode/solution interface, and energy efficiency.
Flow cells and reactor design
As new transformations are developed, there is more need for considering reactor designs as some systems require intermediates to transport between anode and cathode and other systems require the separation of the anode and cathode. In this session we will discuss flow cell design and simulation, development of polymer electrolyte membranes that are tolerant to organic solvents, and understanding the transport limitations of systems.