(527b) Plasma-Liquid Interface for Promoting Organic Electrosynthesis without Solid Electrodes

Plasma-liquid interfaces present an opportunity to promote electrosynthesis reactions in organic chemistry without the need for solid electrodes. The plasma-liquid interface may reduce deleterious effects of electrode fouling common in standard three-electrode configurations and may also avail reactants such as solvated electron without the need for hazardous reagents. To date, most plasma-liquid research has been conducted in aqueous media, which are of limited utility in organic chemistry. In this work, we focus on acetonitrile as the solvent, which has a wide electrochemical stability window and is useful in a wide range of organic chemical reaction systems. We demonstrate that the electrochemical structure of the plasma-liquid interface with acetonitrile solvent and a KPF₆ electrolyte is qualitatively similar to aqueous electrolytes. Furthermore, the solvent appears to be robust with respect to degradation over a range of plasma parameters. If the power supplied to the plasma was too high, then the solvent did start to decompose. Results from experiments conducted with a colorimetric redox indicator demonstrated that organic reduction reactions could be promoted by the plasma liquid interface, without the need for solid electrodes, similar to previous work done in aqueous systems.