First-Principles Study on the Peculiar Water Environment in a Hydrate-Melt Electrolyte.

Aqueous electrolytes have great potential to improve the safety and production costs of Li-ion batteries. Our recent materials exploration led to the discovery of the Li-salt dihydrate melt Li(TFSI)(BETI)·2HO, which possesses an extremely wide potential window. To clarify the detailed liquid structure and electronic states of this unique aqueous system, a first-principles molecular dynamics study has been conducted.

Electrochemical properties of fluorinated boron-doped diamond electrodes via fluorine-containing plasma treatment.

Since a boron-doped diamond (BDD) exhibits excellent electrode properties such as wide potential window, low back-ground current, and high physical and chemical durability, it has been studied as an electrode material for various electrochemical applications. The electrochemical behavior of BDD depends on the surface termination, which can be easily converted by chemical reactions. Fluorine termination has attracted interest because it exhibits unique surface properties such as high hydrophobicity and a low coefficient of friction, and the electrochemical properties also drastically change.

In Situ Spectroscopic Study on the Surface Hydroxylation of Diamond Electrodes.

Carbon-based materials are regarded as an environmentally benign alternative to the conventional metal electrode used in electrochemistry from the viewpoint of sustainable chemistry. Among various carbon electrode materials, boron-doped diamond (BDD) exhibits superior electrochemical properties. However, it is still uncertain how surface chemical species of BDD influence the electrochemical performance, because of the difficulty in characterizing the surface species.

Surface Hydrogenation of Boron-Doped Diamond Electrodes by Cathodic Reduction.

Boron-doped diamond (BDD) has attracted much attention as a promising electrode material especially for electrochemical sensing systems, because it has excellent properties such as a wide potential window and low background current. It is known that the electrochemical properties of BDD electrodes are very sensitive to the surface termination such as to whether it is hydrogen- or oxygen-terminated. Pretreating BDD electrodes by cathodic reduction (CR) to hydrogenate the surface has been widely used to achieve high sensitivity.