Double-layer species

Vibrational Absorption of Interfacial and Double-layer Species... 

The treatment may be made more detailed by supposing that the rate-determining step is actually from species O in the OHP (at potential relative to the solution) to species R similarly located. The effect is to make fi dependent on the value of 2 and hence on any changes in the electrical double layer. This type of analysis has permitted some detailed interpretations to be made of kinetic schemes for electrode reactions and also connects that subject to the general one of this chapter. 

Small micelles in dilute solution close to the CMC are generally beheved to be spherical. Under other conditions, micellar materials can assume stmctures such as oblate and prolate spheroids, vesicles (double layers), rods, and lamellae (36,37). AH of these stmctures have been demonstrated under certain conditions, and a single surfactant can assume a number of stmctures, depending on surfactant, salt concentration, and temperature. In mixed surfactant solutions, micelles of each species may coexist, but usually mixed micelles are formed. Anionic-nonionic mixtures are of technical importance and their properties have been studied (38,39). 

F r d ic Current. The double layer is a leaky capacitor because Faradaic current flows around it. This leaky nature can be represented by a voltage-dependent resistance placed in parallel and called the charge-transfer resistance. Basically, the electrochemical reaction at the electrode surface consists of four thermodynamically defined states, two each on either side of a transition state. These are (11) (/) oxidized species beyond the diffuse double layer and n electrons in the electrode and (2) oxidized species within the outer Helmholtz plane and n electrons in the electrode, on one side of the transition state and (J) reduced species within the outer Helmholtz plane and (4) reduced species beyond the diffuse double layer, on the other. 

The background (residual) current that flows in the absence of the electroactive species of interest is composed of contributions due to double-layer charging process and redox reactions of impurities, as well as of the solvent, electrolyte, or electrode. 

In situ Fourier transform infrared and in situ infrared reflection spectroscopies have been used to study the electrical double layer structure and adsorption of various species at low-index single-crystal faces of Au, Pt, and other electrodes.206"210 It has been shown that if the ions in the solution have vibrational bands, it is possible to relate their excess density to the experimentally observed surface. 

Very simply these equations are valid as long as ion backspillover from the solid electrolyte onto the gas-exposed electrode surfaces is fast relative to other processes involving these ionic species (desorption, reaction) and thus spillover-backspillover is at equilibrium, so that the electrochemical potential of these ionic species is the same in the solid electrolyte and on the gas exposed electrode surface. As long as this is the case, equation (5.29) and its consequent Eqs. (5.18) and (5.19) simply reflect the fact that an overall neutral double layer is established at the metal/gas interface. 

Conversely Figure 6.17 shows that when XjTI<0, then for any fixed 0j one has an increase in pj, or surface activity aj, in relation to the pj or aj value corresponding to 11=0. In fact, denoting by pjor a the activity of species j in absence of the double layer (FI=0), then one obtains from equations (6.41) or (6.42) for any fixed j ... 

It must be emphasized that the effective double layer is overall neutral, as the backspillover species (O6, Na6+) are accompanied by their compensating (screening) charge in the metal.32,3,35,36 It must also be clarified that this backspillover formed effective double layer is not in general at its pzc (point of zero charge). This happens only at a specific value of the electrode potential, as in aqueous electrochemistry.37... 

Figure 11.7 confirms that electrochemically induced and controlled O2 backspillover from the support to the metal film surface is the promoting mechanism both in the case of YSZ (Fig. 11.7a) and in Ti02 (Fig. 11.7b). These figures show the Ols spectrum of the Pt film deposited on YSZ and on TiC>2, first under open-circuit conditions (Fig. 11.7aC, 11.7bA) and then under positive current and potential application (Fig. 11.7aB, 11.7bB). Figures 11.7aC and 11.7bC show the difference spectra. In both cases, XPS clearly shows the presence of the O2 double layer, even under open-circuit conditions (Figs. 11.7aA, 11.7bA) and also clearly confirms the electrochemically controlled backspillover of O2 from the YSZ orTi02 support onto the catalyst surface. Note that the binding energy of the backspillover O species is in both cases near 529 eV, which confirms its strongly anionic (probably O2 ) state.31,32...

Promotion, electrochemical promotion and metal-support interactions are three, at a first glance, independent phenomena which can affect catalyst activity and selectivity in a dramatic manner. In Chapter 5 we established the (functional) similarities and (operational) differences of promotion and electrochemical promotion. In this chapter we established again the functional similarities and only operational differences of electrochemical promotion and metal-support interactions on ionic and mixed conducting supports. It is therefore clear that promotion, electrochemical promotion and metal-support interactions on ion-conducting and mixed-conducting supports are three different facets of the same phenomenon. They are all three linked via the phenomenon of spillover-backspillover. And they are all three due to the same underlying cause The interaction of adsorbed reactants and intermediates with an effective double layer formed by promoting species at the metal/gas interface (Fig. 11.2). 

The EMIRS and SNIFTIRS methods provide the IR vibrational spectra (really the difference spectra - see later) of all species whose population changes either on the electrode surface or in the electrical double layer or in the diffusion layer in response to changing the electrode potential. Spectra will also be obtained for adsorbed species whose population does not change but which undergo a change in orientation or for which the electrode potential alters the Intensity, the position or shape of IR absorption bands. Shifts in band maxima with potential at constant coverage (d nax 6 very common for adsorbed species and they provide valuable information on the nature of adsorbate/absorbent bonding and hence also additional data on adsorbate orientation. 

The main idea of a lattice model is to assume that atomic or molecular entities constituting the system occupy well-defined lattice sites in space. This method is sometimes employed in simulations with the grand canonical ensemble for the simulation of surface electrochemical proceses. The Hamiltonians H of the lattice gas for one and two adsorbed species from which the ttansition probabilities 11 can be calculated have been discussed by Brown et al. (1999). We discuss in some detail MC lattice model simulations applied to the electrochemical double layer and electrochemical formation and growth two-dimensional phases not addressed in the latter review. MC lattice models have also been applied recently to the study the electrox-idation of CO on metals and alloys (Koper et al., 1999), but for reasons of space we do not discuss this topic here. 

Outside of the double-layer region, water itself may be oxidized or reduced, leaving stable hydride, hydroxyl, or oxide layers on the electrode surface. These species may adsorb strongly and block sites from participating in electrocatalysis, as for example, hydroxyl species present at the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell... 

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