Investigations on solid electrodes

On solid electrodes reliable former results suffered from the problem of reproducible surface preparation. A big step was made with the introduction of single crystalline electrodes and the reproducible preparation of single crystalline surfaces. The special problems connected with electrochemistry on single crystalline electrodes are described in a number of publications, e.g., by Clavilier et al  

Nevertheless, even on polycrystalline electrodes the main steps of the deposition mechanism can be determined. These investigations are based on the evaluation of the structure of the transferred ion. In the following, some classical examples of evaluation of the deposition mechanism on polycrystalline electrodes will be described. 

Cadmium plating is stiU an important plating process in industry. The mechanism of electrodeposition from a sulfate electrolyte was one of the first to be investigated in more detail. The electrode reaction is 

The equation for the dependence of the logarithm of the exchange current density on the logarithm of the cadmium ion concentration is 

The charge transfer process is identical with the electrode reaction. 

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