THE WALDECK LAB
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    • The CISS Effect
    • Fundamental Studies of CISS
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Spin Control of Chemical Reactions

Group Members: Brian Bloom, Supriya Ghosh, Jimeng Wei
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Collaborators: Ron Naaman (Weizmann Institute, Israel), Helmet Zacharias (Universitaet Muenster, Germany)

The chiral induced spin selectivity effect can also be exploited for facilitating chemical reactions. We demonstrate that chiral materials are accompanied by a spin polarization that can be used to discriminate between triplet and singlet reaction pathways. Additionally, these studies are guiding the development of new methods for enantiomeric separation and discrimination.
​Current efforts in our group are exploring how the CISS effect can be used to improve the efficacy of the oxygen evolution reaction in water splitting. We are using chiral electrocatalytic materials which polarize the electron spin distribution and thus favors the spin allowed triplet oxygen pathway. Figure 1a summarizes this effect; for spin polarized electrons (blue) preference is given to the formation of triplet oxygen, however for unpolarized electrons (pink) the formation of singlet oxygen competes with the formation of hydrogen peroxide. Figure 1b demonstrates this effect for chiral-CuO electrodes. When the electrode is chiral (red & blue) a lower over potential is observed than when the electrode is achiral (green).
Picture
Figure 1. Panel a) shows an energy diagram for the possible reaction pathways from the combination of spin polarized (blue) and unpolarized (pink) hydroxyl radicals on the CuO surface. Panel b) shows linear sweep voltammograms of chiral (blue, red) and achiral (green) CuO electrodes. 
  • Home
  • People
    • Professor Waldeck
    • Group Members
    • Alumni
  • Research
    • The CISS Effect
    • Fundamental Studies of CISS
    • Spin Control of Chemical Reactions
    • Synthesis of Chiral Materials
  • Publications
  • Teaching
  • Join us