An automated microfluidics platform for accelerating kinetics studies of alcohol electrooxidations

This study presents an automated flow platform to accelerate the kinetics study of small-molecule alcohol electrooxidations. Its microfluidics design and programmable workflow enable efficient, reliable, and reproducible characterizations, achieved by precise control of temperature, electrolyte composition, electrode potential, and in-process electrode cleaning. The validated platform determines apparent reaction orders and activation energies as functions of electrode potential across six alcohol systems, covering 114 conditions in a single run and reducing manual effort by over 50% compared to conventional one-variable-at-a-time methods. The kinetic data provide valuable mechanistic insights, showing that ethanol, 1-propanol, cyclohexanol, and 1,3-propanediol favor a potential-dependent oxidation pathway, whereas ethylene glycol and glycerol with higher hydroxyl-to-carbon ratios prefer an indirect oxidation pathway. This automation-assisted approach is broadly applicable to a range of electrochemical reactions, paving the way for self-driving experimentation for data-driven mechanistic understanding.