Title: Exploring non-covalent interactions to improve electrochemical energy storage and water purification

Molecular catalysts of transition metal complexes have emerged as candidates for solar fuel production by catalyzing the conversion of energy poor feedstocks into fuels, either photo-chemically or electrochemically in a dark reaction. Molecular containers have shown promise to encapsulate a variety of organic and inorganic molecules, with a recent emphasis on molecular catalysts. With the rise of molecular electrocatalysts especially for energy storage applications, our focus is on investigating the figures of merit of molecular nanocapsules to modulate the secondary coordination sphere of fuel producing molecular electrocatalysts. Here redox active guests are used as electrochemical probes to determine the effect of encapsulation on electrochemical properties. This theme of secondary coordination sphere modulation and non-covalent interactions will also be explored to understand how to improve the efficiency of the proton-coupled electron transfer processes involved in oxyanion reduction for water purification.