Janine Mauzeroll

McGill University | McGill · Department of Chemistry

Despite many recent efforts, the field of organic electrosyn‐thesis faces important challenges due to the intricate nature of heterogeneous redox processes, the wide parameter space to be explored and the lack of standardized methods. To overcome these limitations, we developed a cost‐effective high‐throughput electrochemical (HTE) reactor capable...

Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy (SECM) is a promising technique for measuring kinetics of redox reactions at surfaces. The conversion of the current map - produced by rastering an electrode over the surface - to a maps of the rate constant of reactions at the surface requires computer modelling and statistical techniques. Experimentally obtaine...

Stable miniaturized pH microelectrodes are crucial in exploring localized pH changes, but most suffer from instability and short lifetimes. Palladium hydride in a mixer phase has been reported to measure the solution pH taking advantage of the interaction between the alloyed hydrogen atoms and hydrogen ions in the solution. However, with the escape...

Scanning electrochemical cell microscopy (SECCM) is progressively employed for investigating corrosion behaviors at localized sites on metal surfaces. Normally, hundreds of potentiodynamic polarization (PDP) measurements are conducted on the sample using a high potential scan rate to reduce the experimental duration. However, polarization curves ob...

In the realm of single-channel scanning electrochemical cell microscopy (SECCM), two primary methods are utilized for approaching the micropipette onto the substrate surface, specifically the chronoamperometric and chronopotentiometric methods. The chronoamperometric method is typically employed in corrosion studies utilizing SECCM, although it has...

Steels play a vital role in every aspect of day-to-day life. They are major components in construction, transportation, medicine, and etc. Despite their larger usability, steels are suffering from inevitable corrosion. Hence, finding a sustainable solution for corrosion has been a hot topic in the research field for centuries. One extensively studi...

The study of grain-dependent corrosion behaviors of practical polycrystalline metals remains challenging due to the influences of other microstructural features, such as intermetallic particles and grain boundaries. In this work, we employed the oil-immersed scanning electrochemical cell microscopy (SECCM) to investigate the effect of grain orienta...

Low-carbon martensitic stainless steels, such as 13%Cr4%Ni, are widely used in manufacturing hydraulic turbine runners. High tensile strength steel, such as cast CA6NM or wrought S41500 martensitic stainless steel, has an acceptable resistance to corrosion and cavitation, and reduces the weight and cost while offering a more efficient design. Durin...

The oxidation of copper surface decreases the surface functional quality, which can be detrimental for several industrial applications. The objective of my research project is the one-pot reduction of copper oxides on copper surfaces, followed by the formation of a stable coating composed of organic molecules that prevent further oxidation. The org...

Computer modelling of scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) images allows for the kinetics of chemical reactions at surfaces to be fit. Until recently, methods for fitting kinetics from SECM images of reactive features required models with custom geometries that approximated the feature shape. [1,2] The kinetics of arbitrarily-shaped features...

Invited for this issue's Front Cover are the group of Prof. Janine Mauzeroll and Prof. Steen B. Schougaard. The front cover picture shows Li‐metal cells which contain two active materials (red and blue). The cell on the left has both materials intermixed (blended electrode), while the cell on the right has them segregated (dual‐layer electrode). Th...

The electrification of the transport sector has created an increasing demand for lithium‐ion batteries that can provide high power intermittently while maintaining a high energy density. Given the difficulty in designing a single redox material with both high power and energy density, electrodes based on composites of several electroactive material...

The existence of cracks within ductile materials such as stainless steel induces local plasticity around the crack tip that may cause local changes in the microstructure. Although the plastic deformation and microstructural heterogeneities are expected to influence the electrochemistry of the area around the crack tip, few are the studies that corr...

We report a new fabrication method to produce Pd hydride pH microelectrode using a chemical approach to synthesize the palladium hydride. In contrast to electrochemically generated palladium hydride microelectrodes, chemically generated palladium hydride microelectrodes are longer lasting and importantly have good analytical performance under aerob...

Electropolishing as a surface preparation technique is increasing in popularity in industrial applications and for corrosion studies. Electropolished surfaces have shown better resistance to pitting corrosion over mechanical polishing; however, the fundamental reason governing the change in corrosion behaviour remains unclear. This study examined t...

The drastic distortion of potentiodynamic polarization curves measured at high potential scan rates prevents the extraction of accurate kinetic parameters. In this work, we start by measuring potentiodynamic polarization curves of AA7075 at scan rates ranging from 0.167 mV·s ⁻¹ to 100 mV·s ⁻¹ , in an acidic 0.62 M NaH 2 PO 4 solution and a near-neu...

Scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) is a powerful technique for imaging the electrochemical reactivity of a surface. Unfortunately, SECM images are mainly used qualitatively. Kinetics of reactions at the surface are almost exclusively obtained from the microelectrode current as it approaches the surface, called an approach curve. The approac...

In single-channel scanning electrochemical cell microscopy, the applied potential during the approach of a micropipette to the substrate generates a transient current upon droplet contact with the substrate. Once the transient current exceeds a set threshold, the micropipette is automatically halted. Currently, the effect of the approach potential...

What if you could see inside a Li-ion battery while you operate it? This is the concept behind “ operando ” methodologies which allow researchers to experimentally observe fundamental processes that occur within batteries during charge and discharge. Our team recently developed a new methodology employing synchrotron X-ray fluorescence and X-ray di...

The study of grain-dependent corrosion behaviors of practical polycrystalline metals remains challenging due to the difficulty in eliminating the influences of other microstructural features, such as intermetallic particles and grain boundaries. In this work, we performed thousands of microscopic potentiodynamic polarization measurements on a polyc...

Scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) has matured as a technique for studying local electrochemical processes. The feedback mode is most commonly used for extracting quantitative kinetic information. However, approaching individual regions of interest, as is commonly done, does not take full advantage of the spatial resolution that SECM has to...

The damage to a metal is significantly enhanced when simultaneously exposed to a corrosive solution and a cyclic mechanical stress. However, decoupling the contributions from each damage mechanisms is difficult. Localized electrochemical techniques, in particular scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM), scanning electrochemical cell microscopy (...

Scanning micropipette contact method (SMCM) suffers from the droplet evaporation and crystallization which limits the use of most saline electrolyte solutions under natural air humidity. We advanced this technique by scanning the droplet under mineral oil that was placed on the surface of substrate, which significantly improved the stability of dro...

Glycine is an important biomarker in clinical analysis due to its involvement in multiple physiological processes. As such, the need for low-cost analytical tools for glycine detection is growing. As a neurotransmitter, glycine is involved in inhibitory and excitatory neurochemical transmission in the central nervous system. In this work, we presen...

The strength of scanning electrochemical microscopy measurements (SECM) is its ability to give insights into the kinetics of an underlying surface. Up to now there was no established way to extract kinetics from an SECM image. Our study fills this gap by proposing a method that fits the active area and kinetics of reactive sites from SECM images us...

Scanning electrochemical cell microscopy (SECCM) enables direct electrochemical measurements at microscopic sits by scanning a droplet cell over a substrate surface. Scanning micropipette contact method (SMCM) is a type of single-channel SECCM. It has been used to record the spatially resolved electrochemical activities across metal surfaces to inv...

Scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) yields two-dimensional electrochemical images when the current at a microelectrode is recorded as it moves above a surface generating redox species. As SECM images are often systematically compared to microstructure features obtained by electron microscopy there is a clear need to find ways to integrate el...

Corrosion is one of the most destructive on the environment and also on our safety. Not only does the microstructure influence the severity of corrosion, but also does many other chemical and mechanical factors such as fatigue. For this reason, the ability to evaluate and further predict localized corrosion on materials subjected to stress has been...

Li-ion batteries that incorporate manganese present several advantages, including low cost and low toxicity. However, these batteries often suffer from the dissolution of manganese into the electrolyte solution, severely impeding battery performance. This work describes the quantitative detection of Mn2+ ions in battery relevant environment i.e. no...

In 2016, an Editorial in ACS Nano, entitled “The Rising and Receding Fortunes of Electrochemists”, (1) reflected the growing scientific consensus that existing initiatives in fundamental research were undermatched to the fact that electrochemistry was becoming ubiquitous in applications in energy, thus handicapping progress toward social impact. Th...

Bio-nano hybrid materials feature eco-friendly synthesis, various self-assembly patterns and numerous possibilities for surface functionalization. With these unique advantages, biological scaffolds have been regarded as green alternatives to fabricate metallic nanomaterials. Herein, a bulky tobacco mosaic virus coat protein (TMVCP) was employed as...

This work combines two industrially friendly processing methods in order to create wear resistant and solid-lubricating composite coatings potentially suitable for high load applications. Layered composite coatings were fabricated over wrought stainless steel 444 (SS444) by compression molding a mixture of solid lubricant polymer, polytetrafluoroet...

Quantitative scanning micropipette contact method measurements are subject to the deleterious effects of reference electrode interference. The commonly used Ag/AgCl wire quasi-reference counter electrode in the miniaturized electrochemical cell of the scanning micropipette contact method was found to leak Ag+ into the electrolyte solution. The redu...

Scanning micropipette contact method (SMCM) suffers from droplet evaporation and crystallization which limits the use of most saline electrolyte solutions under natural air humidity. To overcome the limitations and expand the application of SMCM, we improve this technique by scanning the droplet under mineral oil that covers on the substrate surfac...

Scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) has recently been reported as a convenient technique tocharacterize the apparent diffusion coefficients in porous media (𝐷⋆) such as lithium-ion battery electrodes.The technique relies on hemispherical diffusion at the probe in the presence and absence of porous media.However, transition towards cylindrica...

Challenges facing enzyme-based electrochemical sensors include substrate specificity, batch to batch reproducibility, and lack of quantitative metrics related to the effect of enzyme immobilization. We present a quick, simple, and general approach for measuring the effect of immobilization and cross-linking on enzyme activity and substrate specific...

D-serine has been implicated as a brain messenger with central roles in neural signaling and plasticity. Disrupted levels of D-serine in the brain have been associated with neurological disorders, including schizophrenia, depression and Alzheimer's disease. Electrochemical biosensors are attractive tools for measuring real-time in vivo D-serine con...

Electrolyte decomposition in Li-ion batteries (LIB) and its entailing gas evolution significantly impacts cell performance. CO2 is one of the most abundantly evolved gases from common LIB electrolytes and could potentially affect Li⁺ solution transport during LIB operation. To this end, a comparative analysis of the Li⁺ diffusion coefficient (DLi+)...

Lead and Arsenic are two of the most toxic common water contaminants. We report on a new type of portable and sustainable device designed for arsenic and lead removal from highly contaminated water sources. The device utilizes a combination of granular activated carbon (GAC) and an electrochemical deposition technique that increases the device’s de...

The Cover Feature (designed by Dr. Nicholas A. Payne, University of Western Ontario) shows the different components required for applying bio‐templated metallic nanomaterials in electrocatalysis. Biological scaffolds including peptides, proteins, DNA, and viruses are employed as green candidates supporting the growth of metallic nanostructures. The...

Developing metallic nanocatalysts with high reaction activity, selectivity and practical durability is a promising and active subfield in electrocatalysis. In the classical “bottom‐up” approach to synthesize stable nanomaterials by chemical reduction, stabilizing additives such as polymers or organic surfactants must be present to cap the nanoparti...

Self-lubricating duplex composites comprising a top layer of polymer-based composites, i.e. bismaleimide (BMI) filled with a wide range of graphite (Gr) content (0–55 wt.%), and a bottom layer of infiltrated metal networks were manufactured by a hot compression-molded method. Melting points and polymerization temperatures of as-received BMI powder...

This work reports the development of an oil immersed-scanning micropipette contact method, a variant of scanning micropipette contact method, where a thin layer of oil wets the investigated substrate. Oil immersed-scanning micropipette contact method significantly increases the droplet stability, allowing for prolonged mapping and the use of highly...

The trade-off between energy density and power capabilities is a challenge for Li-ion battery design as it highly depends on the complex porous structures that holds the liquid electrolyte. Specifically, mass-transport limitations lead to large concentration gradients in the solution-phase and subsequently to crippling overpotentials. The direct st...

Amino acids are recently emerging as potential biomarkers of neurological and kidney diseases such as Alzheimer's, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Chronic Kidney Disease. The rising global prevalence of these disorders is making it increasingly essential to develop tools for rapid, direct and accurate amino acid quantification. In this talk, we w...

With the current climate crisis having no end in sight, communities worldwide are depending on new battery technology to store energy from intermittent sources of energy such as wind and solar. Li-ion batteries (LIBs) have presented themselves as a worthy candidate for the task given their high capacity for charge as well as their durability in ter...

Scanning micropipette contact method (SMCM) is powerful in mapping electrochemical activities of a surface at a high spatial resolution and revealing the surface heterogeneities. Al alloys is heterogeneous in composition resulting in different corrosion rates over the surface. By approaching the electrolyte solution filled micropipette to the sampl...

Composite electrodes can significantly improve the performance of an electrochemical device by maximizing surface area and active material loading. Typically, additives such as carbon are used to improve conductivity and a polymer is used as a binder leading to a heterogeneous surface film with thickness on the order of tens of microns. For such co...

Inspiration from nature has driven the development and application of greener nanomaterials prepared using biotemplates in the field of nanoscience. Compared to traditional chemical routes, bioinspired nanomaterial synthesis has the advantage of mild synthetic conditions such as aqueous environment, ambient temperature, and no requirement for organ...

A novel concept for the development of chiral sensor is proposed based on electrochemical phase transformation of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs), which is shown for in situ photoelectric cooperative analysis mode. To demonstrate this, self-assembled Ag NPs on gold microelectrode (Ag-Au ME) serve as the sensing platform for chiral cysteine (D/L-Cys)...

Interfacial chemistry in gas-phase flow reactors plays a critical role in improving CO2 electrolysis performance. The reaction productivity is generally limited by the inherently low gas availability on the catalyst surface. In the current issue of Science, Sargent et al. proposed a highly efficient system that enabled hydrocarbon production with a...

Substituting fossil fuel usage with environmentally friendly solutions is essential to meeting global targets for reduced carbon emissions. One promising option is using CO₂ as a carbon source in the synthesis of useful chemicals such as ethylene oxide. This same technology could convert CO₂ to fuels to supplement intermittent green energy sources...

To achieve super-resolution scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM), we must overcome the theoretical limitation associated with non-contact electrochemical imaging of surface-generated species. This is the requirement for mass transfer to the electrode, which gives rise to the diffusional broadening of surface features. In this work, a procedur...

CO2 reduction offers an attractive alternative green synthetic route for ethylene, especially where CO2 could be sourced from industrial exhausts and in combination with green power sources. However, practical applications are currently limited due to the unfortunately low selectivity of cathode materials towards ethylene. This work uses polymers w...

Chapter 13 explores the phenomenon of electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) and its analytical application. This broad swath of literature is broached through first establishing the groundwork for the electrochemistry commonly used to generate ECL. Then building on this, the fundamental electron transfer (ET) theory underpinning ECL, the histori...

Redox-responsive self-assembled materials comprise a broad and diverse field employing a range of structures including polymers, dendrimers, nanoparticles, and supramolecular nanosheet gels. Such materials may be employed in a range of applications including energy storage, electronics, sensors, catalysis and biomedicine. In this chapter we present...

While investigating the influence of an alloying element on the corrosion properties of a metal, materials scientists and engineers typically fabricate an array of samples with increasing concentrations of the alloying element in order to build up a gradient of substrates suitable for corrosion testing. The resulting series of substrates can consis...

As most superhydrophobic coatings are made of soft material, the need for harder, more robust films is evident in applications where erosional degradation is of concern. The work herein describes a methodology to produce superhydrophobic stainless steel thermal spray coatings using the high-velocity oxygen fuel technique. Due to the use of kerosene...

Lithium ion battery performance becomes increasing limited by ionic transport as the current demands increases. Especially detrimental is the transport within the liquid electrolyte that fills the porous electrode, yet reliable measurement of practical lithium diffusivity within this complex structure has been a longstanding challenge. In this work...

Thermally sprayed stainless-steel coatings were produced with a wide range of deposition parameters. The electrochemical behavior of polished coatings was monitored for 3 weeks in 3.5 wt.% NaCl aqueous solution and compared to that of reference materials including a wrought stainless steel plate and a bulk ingot produced by arc melting of the spray...

High-velocity oxygen fuel thermal spray stainless steel coatings are desirable for their excellent erosion resistance. However, the fabrication process can lead to a decrease in corrosion resistance in comparison to the original bulk material. Here we produced stainless steel coatings on stainless steel substrates using varying deposition parameter...

Advancements in microelectrode fabrication, instrumentation, and theory have made data collection for scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) more accessible than ever before. In contrast, data treatment and analysis is still mostly done using proprietary or in-house tools or scripts. In this work, an open-source, free, Python-based software cal...

Composite electrodes can significantly improve the performance of an electrochemical device by maximizing surface area and active material loading. Typically, additives such as carbon are used to improve conductivity and a polymer is used as a binder - leading to a heterogeneous surface film with thickness on the order of tens of microns. For such...

We are reporting the application of scanning electrochemical cell microscopy to probe and identify nanometric defects in a multilayered aryl film formed by aryldiazonium reduction. We have determined by numerical simulation that, due to pipette geometry restrictions, the best sensitivity towards pinhole size can be obtained when measuring small pin...

Correction for ‘Biosynthesized silver nanorings as a highly efficient and selective electrocatalysts for CO 2 reduction’ by Yani Pan et al. , Nanoscale , 2019, 11 , 18595–18603.

Inspiration from nature has driven the development and applications of greener inorganic nanomaterials prepared by biotemplates in the field of nanoscience. In this study, we report the superiority of using a biosynthesized silver nanoring material for CO formation in CO2 saturated KHCO3. Compared to bulk silver and free silver nanoparticles prepar...

The substitution of fossil based production routes with new, innovative synthesis strategies for bulk chemicals and fuels will become a strategic goal within the next decade. One promising avenue is the use of CO2 as a carbon source in the synthesis of useful materials such as methanol or ethylene.[1] Such reactions have been successfully demonstra...

An approach to electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) signal enhancement, utilizing the highly tailorable ring opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) to generate novel ECL active nanoscale structures is explored. The strategy involves integrating into a single polymer multiple copies of an analogue of the established ECL luminophore, tris(2,2’‐...

Simulation of corrosion reactions has become an important tool in the analysis of novel materials for corrosion resistant materials and applications. A number of analytical, boundary element and finite element methods currently exist in the literature, which use experimental corrosion parameters as model inputs for the extraction of simulated polar...

Microelectrodes are small scale electrodes used for electroanalytical detection which have found applications in a wide variety of research areas including biology, kinetics, instrumental development, and surface modification. In this review, we provide a summary of the theory and experimental parameters used for bioelectrochemistry applications of...

We report a redox-responsive liposomal system capable of oxidatively-triggered disassembly. We describe the synthesis, electrochemical characterization and incorporation into vesicles of an alternative redox lipid with significantly improved synthetic efficiency and scalability compared to a ferrocene-appended phospholipid previously employed by ou...

The edge of a reactive or topographical feature is hard to estimate from feedback-based scanning electrochemical microscopy due to diffusional blurring, but is crucial to determining the accurate size and shape of these features. In this work, numerical simulations are used to demonstrate that the inflection point in a 1D line scan corresponds well...

One of the long standing challenges to performing electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) research is the need for dedicated instrumentation or highly customized cells to achieve reproducibility. This manuscript describes an approach to designing ECL systems through the hyphenation of existing laboratory instruments, which provide innate time corr...

N-Heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) have been the focus of renewed interest in recent years for their ability to form extremely stable monolayers on noble metals. However, their ability to bond to non-noble metals is less understood. Magnesium is among the most notorious of these, as the native oxide layer is too porous to be passive but too protective...

Since its discovery, electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) has evolved into a detection strategy, 1 a platform for light emitting device (LED) fabrication, 2 and a methodology for electron transfer research. 3 As a detection methodology, the fundamental promise of a system limited by the detector's noise is implicitly attractive. 4 Despite ECL p...

The field of enzymatic biosensors has rapidly expanded over the last few years, thanks in part to their excellent selectivity to specific target species. 1-2 Much current research is therefore focused on enhancing the electrochemical signal, which often involves the detection of stoichiometric amounts of H2O2 formed as part of the enzyme mechanism....

The ionic liquid 1‐ethyl‐3‐methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide was used in the scanning micropipette contact method to extend the electrochemical window of the electrolyte solution and enable the study of lithium‐ion battery materials with higher oxidation potential. Localized electrochemical measurements were performed on lithium i...

The field of enzymatic biosensors applied to brain electrochemistry has rapidly expanded over the last few years, thanks in part to their excellent selectivity to specific target species. Much current research is therefore focused on enhancing the electrochemical signal, which often involves the detection of stoichiometric amounts of H2O2 formed as...