​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).

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.