Plasma-Driven Solution Electrolysis

Plasmas interacting with liquids enable the generation of a highly reactive interfacial liquid layer due to a variety of processes driven by plasma-produced electrons, ions, photons, and radicals. These processes show promise to enable selective, efficient, and green chemical transformations and new material synthesis approaches. While many differences are to be expected between conventional electrolysis and plasma-liquid interactions, plasma-liquid interactions can be viewed, to a first approximation, as replacing a metal electrode in an electrolytic cell with a gas phase plasma. For this reason, we refer to this method as plasma-driven solution electrochemistry (PDSE). In this Perspective, we address two fundamental questions that should be answered to enable researchers to make transformational advances in PDSE: How far from equilibrium can plasma-induced solution processes be driven? and What are the fundamental differences between PDSE and other more traditional electrochemical processes? Different aspects of both questions are discussed in five sub-questions for which we review the current state-of-the art and we provide a motivation and research vision.