Global Perturbation Theory Applied to Nonlinear Behavior in the Electrochemical Oxidation of Alcohols: Theory and Experiment

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Mark Schell is supported by a grant from the Theoretical and Computational Chemistry Program to study the theoretical and experimental nonlinear behavior in electrochemical oxidation of alcohols. The nonlinear kinetic processes to be studied are the electrochemical oxidations of alcohols in acid solution under the condition of constant current. Two fundamental problems will be addressed: 1) the investigation of the fundamental chemical steps underlying temporal instabilities during the elcetro-oxidation of methanol at a Pt electrode; and 2) the development of new techniques for describing nonlinear kinetic problems that are global in parameter space and phase space. Much of the proposed experimental work will center on the instabilities in the electro-oxidation of methanol. Preliminary experimental work has shown this system to be tristable. The PI will attempt to model this behavior by theoretically deriving the potential vs. current curves and oscillatory nonlinear behavior. The proposed work has practical implications with regard to the commercial feasibility of an ambient-temperature, methanol-air, fuel cell