Use of magnetic fields in electrochemistry: A selected review

Electrochemical reactions are usually thermally activated and submitted to mass-transfer effects. Although classically, enhanced kinetics of an electrochemical reaction is obtained by heating the cell and feeding the reactant by forced convection, other means can be used to improve mass-transfer and charge-transfer. This article shortly reviews the effects of magnetic fields in electrochemistry. Using a static or an alternating magnetic field enables to enhance electrodeposition and electrocatalysis, via improved gas and species convection, electrochemical kinetics, and whole reaction efficiency. Such enhancement can mainly be related to Lorentz and Kelvin forces, magneto-hydrodynamics, chiral-induced spin selectivity, and hyperthermia, these effects being described herein.