Making electrochemistry easily accessible to the synthetic chemist

• Christiane Schotten^*a
• Thomas P. Nicholls^a
• Richard A. Bourne^b
• Nikil Kapur^c
• Bao N. Nguyen^a
• Charlotte E. Willans^*a

• ^aSchool of Chemistry, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
• ^bSchool of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
• ^cSchool of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK

A significantly renewed interest in synthetic electrochemistry is apparent in the increasing number of publications over the last few years. Electrochemical synthesis offers a mild, green and atom efficient route to interesting and useful molecules, thus avoiding harsh chemical oxidising and reducing agents used in traditional synthetic methods. As such, encouraging broader application of electrochemistry by synthetic chemists should be a priority. Despite the renewed interest there remains a barrier to widespread adoption of this technology derived from the extra knowledge and specialised equipment required. This has led to a knowledge gap between experienced electrochemists and those new in the field. In this tutorial we will bridge the knowledge gap by providing an easily accessible introduction which will enable synthetic chemists new to the field to explore electrochemistry. We will discuss mechanistic considerations, the setup of an electrochemical reaction with all its components, trouble shooting and selected examples from the literature.

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