Recent advances in spectroscopic investigations on ionic liquid/electrode interfaces

Potential applications of room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) for electrochemical energy devices motivate a better fundamental understanding of electrochemical interfaces of RTILs. Potential-dependent structural changes of RTILs/electrode interfaces and elementary processes of electrode kinetics must be elucidated. Interface-sensitive spectroscopic techniques, powerful probes for analyzing structures and dynamics of interfaces, have revealed hysteretic adsorption/desorption of ions on electrodes, interplay between the interfacial structures and reactions, and dynamics of intermediate species. Here, we briefly review selected publications reported over the past 3 years related to molecular-scale investigations on electrochemical interfaces of RTILs with the use of spectroscopic techniques.