Hydrogen Ion Discharge at Metal Electrodes

The basic model presented above is applicable to hydrogen ion discharge reactions at metals. A characteristic feature of these 

for a transition between any two vibrational levels of the proton, the fluctuation of the molecular surrounding provides the activation. For each such transition, the motion along the proton coordinate is of quantum (sub-barrier) character. Possible intramolecular activation of the H—O chemical bond is taken into account in the theory by means of the summation of the probabilities of transitions between all the excited vibrational states of the proton with a weighting function corresponding to the thermal distribution.3,36 Incorporation in the theory of the contribution of the excited states enabled us in particular to improve the agreement between the theory and experiment with respect to the independence of the symmetry factor of the potential in a wide region of 8 p.50 A similar approach has been used recently in Refs. 51 and 52, where the 

If prior to the electron transition the potential energy surface along the proton coordinate r had a minimum corresponding to a stable chemical bond, various situations are possible after the change of the electron state due to the electron transition  

The new potential energy surface has no minima. This means that the electron transfer leads to cleavage of the chemical bond. The possibility of the formation of a new chemical bond depends, in this case, on the location of the other PES (see below). 

The new potential energy surface has a minimum corresponding to localization of the proton near another atom or molecule (or near the surface of a solid). This means that the 

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