Indirect Electrolysis — Using a Dissolved Mediator as an Electron Ferry, in 3D
In direct electrolysis, the substrate itself must adsorb at the electrode, transfer electrons heterogeneously, and desorb as product — a demanding sequence many molecules cannot complete cleanly. Mediator-assisted (indirect) electrolysis inserts a small, robust, reversibly-oxidizable molecule between electrode and substrate. This 3D companion renders that two-step catalytic cycle as a real spatial pathway: an electrode plane on one side, a substrate cluster on the other, and mediator spheres that physically shuttle between them, changing color as they swap between oxidized and reduced states.
- e⁻ ferry: Mediator role (couples heterogeneous electrode ET with homogeneous solution ET)
- TEMPO/Br/Cl/Fc: Four real mediator couples, each with its literature E° vs SCE
- Loading (mol%): Sets mediator particle count and the flux/FE trade-off
- Target j: Applied current density — pushes flow speed and demand stress on the mediator pool
Potential matching, ported to a live formula
Faradaic efficiency is computed continuously from the margin between the chosen mediator's standard potential and the substrate's own intractable oxidation potential (0.55 V vs SCE) — the same potential-matching logic the 2D original describes in prose, now driving the 3D particle field frame by frame.
Loading and demand stress
Too little mediator starves the shuttle flux; too much wastes charge on side reactions. Raising the target current density beyond what the current loading can supply drags faradaic efficiency down — visible directly as more mediator spheres flashing grey (wasted) instead of gold (productive) at the substrate cluster.
Turnover number
A live TON counter accumulates every successful mediator→substrate electron transfer, exactly mirroring the economic quantity (moles product / moles mediator charged) described in the original's industrial-scale-up stage.
The electrode only ever "sees" the mediator — the substrate never touches a solid surface, and that decoupling is what the 3D shuttle path makes visible.