Metal oxide-ionic liquid interface

The plasma ionic liquid interface is interesting from both the fundamental and the practical point of view. From the more fundamental point of view, this interface allows direct reactions between free electrons from the gas phase without side reactions - once inert gases are used for the plasma generation. From the practical point of view, ionic liquids are vacuum-stable electrolytes that can favorably be used as solvents for compounds to be reduced or oxidised by plasmas. Plasma cathodic reduction may be used as a novel method for the generation of metal or semiconductor particles, if degradation reactions of the ionic liquid can be suppressed sufficiently. Plasma anodic oxidation with ionic liquids has yet to be explored. In this case the ionic liquid is cathodically polarized causing an enhanced plasma ion bombardment, that leads to secondary electron emission and fast decomposition of the ionic liquid. 

An alternative description of a molecular solvent in contact with a solute of arbitrary shape is provided by the 3D generalization of the RfSM theory (3D-RISM) which yields the 3D correlation functions of interaction sites of solvent molecules near the solute. It was first proposed in a general form by Chandler, McCoy, and Singer [22] and recently developed by several authors for various systems by Cortis, Rossky, and Friesner [23] for a one-component dipolar molecular liquid, by Beglov and Roux [24, 25] for water and a number of organic molecules in water, and by Hirata and co-workers for water [26, 27], metal-water [26, 28] and metal oxide-water [31] interfaces, orientationally dependent potentials of mean force between molecular ions in a polar molecular solvent [29], ion pairs in aqueous electrolyte [30], and hydration of hydrophobic and hydrophilic solutes alkanes [32], polar molecule of carbon monoxide [33], simple ions [34], protein [35], amino acids and polypeptides [36, 37]. It should be noted that accurate calculation of the solvation thermodynamics for ionic and polar solutes in a polar molecular liquid requires special corrections to the 3D-RISM equations to eliminate the electrostatic artifacts of the supercell treatment employed in the 3D-RISM approach [30, 34]. 

In the area of interfacial charging at the solid/liquid interface of metal oxide aqueous suspensions, the "surface complexation or site binding concept is commonly used [3-20]. This concept is characterised by consideration of specific ionic reactions with surface groups, rather than assuming simple binding of ions to the surface or their accumulation at the interface (adsorption). In the past decade several different models were introduced on the basis of the surface complexation model (SCM) they differ in the assumed structure of the electrical interfacial layer (EIL) and in the proposed mechanisms and stoichiometries of surface reactions leading to surface charge. 

Can one explain this importance of the slag Measurements of conductance as a function of temperature and of transport number indicate that the slag is an ionic conductor (liquid electrolyte). In the metal-slag interface, one has the classic situation (Fig. 5.81) of a metal (i.e., iron) in contact with an electrolyte (i.e., the molten oxide electrolyte, slag), with all the attendant possibilities of corrosion of the metal. Corrosion of metals is usually a wasteful process, but here the current-balancing partial electrodic reactions that make up a corrosion situation are indeed the very factors that control the equilibrium of various components (e.g., S ) between slag and metal and hence the properties of the metal, which depend greatly on its trace impurities. For example,... 

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