The substitution reaction is one of the most important reactions in organic chemistry. The dehydration reaction specifically is useful but suffers from the issues of poor atom economy and difficult purification methods. These issues can be mitigated using catalytic dehydration methods, and even further by electrocatalysis. The Nacsa research group has developed and optimized an electrosynthetic method using phenothiazine catalysts for use in esterification reactions, which has broader implications for electrocatalyzed dehydration reactions. However, this methodology remains limited to a commercial electrosynthetic instrument, and the mechanism of this catalyst is still unknown. This research aims to make the electrochemical setup more widely accessible to researcher by optimizing the reaction on a less expensive setup, as well as investigating the mechanism of the electrochemical catalyst using IR.
