Controlling the Activity and Stability of Electrochemical Interfaces Using Atom-by-Atom Metal Substitution of Redox Species

Understanding the molecular-level properties of electrochemically active ions at operating electrode-electrolyte interfaces (EEI) is key to the rational development of high-performance nanostructured surfaces for applications in energy technology. Herein, an electrochemical cell coupled with ion soft landing is employed to examine the effect of atom-by-atom metal substitution on the activity and stability of well-defined redox-active anions, PMoxW12-xO403- (x = 0, 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, or 12) at nanostructured ionic liquid EEI. A striking observation made by in situ electrochemical measurements and further supported by theoretical calculations is that the substitution of only one to three tungsten atoms by molybdenum atoms in the PW12-xO403- anions results in a substantial spike in their first reduction potential. Specifically, PMo3W9O403- showed the highest redox activity in both in situ electrochemical measurements and as part of a functional redox supercapacitor device, making it a super-active redox anion compared with all other PMoxW12-xO403- species. Electronic structure calculations showed that metal substitution in PMoxW12-xO403- causes the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) to protrude locally, making it the active site for reduction of the anion. Several critical factors contribute to the observed trend in redox activity including (i) multiple isomeric structures populated at room temperature, which affect the experimentally determined reduction potential; (ii) substantial decrease of the LUMO energy upon replacement of W atoms with more-electronegative Mo atoms; and (iii) structural relaxation of the reduced species produced after the first reduction step. Our results illustrate a path to achieving superior performance of technologically relevant EEIs in functional nanoscale devices through understanding of the molecular-level electronic properties of specific electroactive species with atom-by-atom precision.