Zinc iron oxide/platinum electrodes

The electrochemical oxidation of tyramine in NaOH/MeOH media gives films of polytyramine (25). The film, on a platinum electrode, can complex copper(II) ions from aqueous media and cobalt(II), iron(II), manganese(II) and zinc(II) from organic media. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy established that coordination of the metal ions had occurred. For cobalt, evidence of coordination to both ether and amine functions is obtained, but for the other metal ions evidence of ether coordination is less definitive. 

This reduction step can be readily observed at a mercury electrode in an aprotic solvent or even in aqueous medium at an electrode covered with a suitable surfactant. However, in the absence of a surface-active substance, nitrobenzene is reduced in aqueous media in a four-electron wave, as the first step (Eq. 5.9.3) is followed by fast electrochemical and chemical reactions yielding phenylhydroxylamine. At even more negative potentials phenylhydroxylamine is further reduced to aniline. The same process occurs at lead and zinc electrodes, where phenylhydroxylamine can even be oxidized to yield nitrobenzene again. At electrodes such as platinum, nickel or iron, where chemisorption bonds can be formed with the products of the... 

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