Despite being so large, many enzymes are not only excellent electrocatalysts - making possible chemical transformations under almost reversible conditions - but they also facilitate our understanding of electrocatalysis by allowing complex processes to be dissected systematically. The electrocatalytic voltammograms obtained for enzymes attached to an electrode expose fundamental aspects of electrocatalysis that can be addressed in ways that are not available to conventional molecular or surface electrocatalysts. The roles of individual components, each characterisable by diffraction or spectroscopy, can be tested and optimised by genetic engineering. Importantly, unlike small-molecule electrocatalysts (RMM < 1000) that are structurally well-defined but invariably altered by being attached to a surface, the enzyme is a giant, multi-component assembly in which the active site is buried and relatively insensitive to the presence of the electrode and solvent interface. A central assertion is that for a given driving force (electrode potential) a true catalyst has no influence on the direction of the reaction; consequently, 'catalytic bias', i.e. the common observation that an enzyme or indeed any electrocatalyst operates preferentially in one direction, must arise from secondary effects beyond the elementary catalytic cycle. This Perspective highlights and extends a general model for electrocatalysis by surface-confined enzymes, and explains how two secondary effects control the bias: (i) the electrode potential at which electrons enter or leave the catalytic cycle; (ii) potential-dependent interconversions between states of the catalyst differing in catalytic activity due to changes in the composition and arrangements of atoms. The model, which is easily applied to enzymes that have been studied recently, highlights important considerations for understanding and developing surface-confined electrocatalysts.

Enzymes which evolved more than 2 billion years ago set exceptional standards for electrocatalysts being sought today.

The organised nanostructure of mesoporous platinum deposited from the H(I) phase of a lyotropic liquid crystal template contains a regular, hexagonal array of uniform nanometre diameter cylindrical pores. This structure is ideally suited to the investigation of the interfacial capacitance and properties of ionic liquids confined within small pores of the type found in the high surface area electrodes favoured for supercapacitors and batteries. Cyclic voltammetry experiments for BMIM-PF(6) show a large capacitance for the mesoporous Pt electrode, confirming that the ionic liquid fills the 2 nm pores. The value of the specific capacitance, normalised to the total surface area, for the ionic liquid within the pores is approximately twice as large as the corresponding value at a flat Pt surface. Impedance measurements, using a small amplitude perturbation, give a value for the capacitance about one order of magnitude less than that from cyclic voltammetry where the amplitude of the perturbation is much larger. The impedance measurements show that the conductivity of the ionic liquid within the pores is at least three orders of magnitude lower than that in the bulk indicating highly restricted mobility for the ions in these narrow pores. The implications of these results for applications in supercapacitors and batteries are discussed.

H(1) mesoporous platinum surfaces formed by electrodeposition from lyotropic liquid crystalline templates have high electroactive surface areas (up to 60 m(2) g(-1)) provided by the concave surface within their narrow (≈2 nm diameter) pores. In this respect, they are fundamentally different from the flat surfaces of ordinary Pt electrodes or the convex surfaces of high-surface-area Pt nanoparticles. Cyclic voltammetry of H(1) mesoporous Pt films in acid solution is identical to that for polycrystalline Pt, suggesting that the surfaces of the pores are made up of low-index Pt faces. In contrast, CO stripping voltammetry on H(1) mesoporous Pt is significantly different from the corresponding voltammetry on polycrystalline Pt and shows a clear prewave for CO oxidation and the oxidation CO at lower overpotential. These differences in CO stripping are related to the presence of trough sites where the low-index Pt faces that make up the concave surface of the pore walls meet.

A synaptic enzyme fuel cell comprising wet hydrogenase and bilirubin oxidase electrodes surrounded by ionic liquid shell.