What is organic electrochemistry

Organic electrochemistry is concerned with the exchange of electrons between a substrate and an electrode and the chemical reactions that result from such electron transfer processes [1, 2]. Thus, organic electrochemical processes are conceptually related to other organic reactions that include one or more electron transfer steps [3] including, for instance, pho-toinduced electron transfer [4] and manyorganometalhc [5,6] and biological processes [7]. 

However, the mechanisms of conventional redox reactions and electrochemical reactions maybe quite different. Within the formalism of electron transfer theory, the electron transfer reactions at electrodes are usually of the outer-sphere type, whereas those that involve inorganic ions are often of the inner-sphere type [11]. 

Electrochemical reactions are attractive alternatives to conventional redox reactions for at least three reasons. First, the oxidising power of the anode and the reducing power of the cathode can be varied continuously through the electrode potential which is under the control of the experimentalist this enhances the selectivity of the process. Second, the electron is a clean reagent and the removal of by-products, such as Cr3+ or Sn2+ in the examples given above, is avoided during work-up. For this reason, electrochemistry is often 

Electrochemical reactions may be carried out at any scale from the smallest to the largest and progress in nanotechnology has made it possible to address electron transfer at the single molecule level [26, 27]. Conversions at the laboratory scale are well established and have been addressed by numerous authors [1, 2] and, at the industrial scale, more than 50 electrochemical processes have reached a respectable level with the reductive hydrodimeri-sation of acrylonitrile to adiponitrile topping the list with an annual production of about 300 000 tons [28], 

In addition to the direct conversions shown above, electrochemistry is often used in an indirect fashion, e.g. for the in situ generation of (harmful) reagents such as bromine or iodine by oxidation of bromide and iodide ion, respectively, or of Ce4+ by oxidation of Ce3+ [28]. Also, the regeneration of oxidation products such as dichromate, Equations 6.1a and 6.3, has been put to use [28]  

---