Dimensionality-Dependent Electrochemical Kinetics at the Single-Layer Graphene-Electrolyte Interface

The theories to describe the rate at which electrochemical reactions proceed, to date, do not consider explicitly the dimensionality or the discreteness and occupancy of the energy levels of the electrodes. We show experimentally that such quantum mechanical aspects are important for dimensionally confined nanostructured materials and yield unusual variation of the kinetic rate constants with applied voltage in single-layer graphene. The observed divergence from conventional electrokinetics was ascribed to the linear energy dispersion as well as a nonzero density of states at the Dirac point in the graphene. The obtained results justify the use of density of states-based rate constants and considerably add to Marcus-Hush-Chidsey kinetics.