The lecture course will provide an introduction into the fundamental concepts of charge transfer and charge transport in modern electrochemistry, which is indispensable for understanding the principles of energy conversion and energy storage processes. The lecture course will introduce the basic principles of thermodynamics and kinetics of electrochemical reactions, structure of interfaces of different materials, elementary steps and mechanisms of electrode reactions. The most important techniques for characterization of electrochemical processes such as steady-state, transient and impedance spectroscopy methods will be presented. The introduced concepts will be used as a basis for explanation of principles and functionality of the devices involving charge transport processes such as electrochemical sensors, batteries, fuel cells, photovoltaic cells and electroactive layers.

Lecture content:

1. Overview of electrode processes:

– heterogeneous and homogeneous electron transfer >- processes initiated by charge transfer

2. Thermodynamics of electrode reactions

– free energy and cell potential

– Fermi level and absolute potential

3. Kinetics of electrode reactions

– rate limiting steps of electrode reactions

– Butler-Volmer model, Tafel equation

– microscopic theories of charge transfer (Marcus theory)

4. Mass transfer by migration and diffusion

– general mass transfer equation

– migration and diffusion in liquid electrolytes: Nernst-Planck equation, Fick’s laws of diffusion

– coupled electron/ion transport in semiconducting layers

– electron/ion transport in membrane layers

5. Structure of interface

– metal-solution interface

– semiconductor-solution interface

6. Basic methods of characterization of electron transport reactions

– potentiodynamic methods (voltammetry)

– potentiostatic/galvanostatic methods

– Impedance spectroscopy

7. Electroactive layers and modified electrodes

8. Photoelectrochemistry

– photovoltaic cells

– photoelectrocynthetic cells

– photocatalytic cells

9. Electrochemical devices:

– fuel cells

– sensors

– batteries

– electrochromic displays