Electrochemistry Using Electrodes of Superconducting Materials at Temperatures Below Tc

4 Electrochemistry Using Electrodes of Superconducting Materials at Temperatures Below Tc 

Electrochemical studies of redox systems in solution using superconducting electrodes at temperatures below the critical temperature are still very much in their infancy. 

At this point the first investigations on electron transfer phenomena could be carried out, using electrodes able to become superconducting at sufficiently low temperature. 

It is clear that the decrease of the rate of the electron transfer operated by the temperature makes the oxidation of ferrocene become quasi-reversible for both the electrode materials. Moreover, it is noted that for both types of electrode the faradaic current increases with temperature. For both the electrodes the oxidation process is governed by diffusion, since in both cases the plot of log(/p) vs. 1/T is linear. Furthermore, one should note in particular that, contrary to the naive expectation, for the superconducting electrode one does not observe any abrupt change in the response upon crossing the barrier from superconductor (that should exchange pairs of electrons) to simple conductor (that should exchange single electrons). 

Geselbracht, B.J. Johnson, G.C. Lisensky and W.R. Robinson, Teaching General Chemistry, American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, 1993 Chapter 9 (b) A. Simon, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl., 1997, 36, 1788-1806. 

---