Modern Aspects Of Electrochemistry No 6

In the last decade, the evolution of electrochemistry away from concern with the physical chemistry of solutions to its more fruitful goal in the study of the widespread consequences of the transfer of electric charges across interphases has come to fruition. The turning of technology away from an onward rush, regardless, to progress which takes into account repercussions of techno logical activity on the environment, and the consequent need for a reduction and then termination of the injection of CO into 2 the atmosphere (greenhouse effect), together with a reckoning with air and water pollution in general, ensures a long-term need for advances in a basic knowledge of electrochemical systems, an increased technological use of which seems to arise from the environmental necessities. But a mighty change in attitude needs to spread among electro chemists (indeed, among all surface chemists) concerning the terms and level in which their field is discussed. The treatment of charge transfer reactions has often been made too vaguely, in terms, it seemed, of atom transfer, with the electron-transfer step, the essence of electrochemistry, an implied accompaniment to the transfer of ions across electrical double layers. The treatment has been in terms of classical mechanics, only tenable while inadequate questions were asked concerning the behavior of the electron in the interfacial transfer. No process demands a more exclusively quantal discussion than does electron transfer.

This volume of Modern Aspects of Electrochemistry contains six chapters. The first four chapters are about phenomena of interest at the microscopic level and the last two are on phenomena at the macroscopic level. In the first chapter, Uosaki and Kita review various theoretical models that have been presented to describe the phenomena that occur at an electrolyte/ semiconductor interface under illumination. In the second chapter, Orazem and Newman discuss the same phenomena from a different point of view. In Chapter 3, Bogus lavsky presents state-of-the-art considerations of transmembrane potentials and other aspects of active transport in biological systems. Next, Burke and Lyons present a survey of both the theoretical and the experimental work that has been done on hydrous oxide films on several metals. The last two chapters cover the topics of the production of chlorine and caustic and the phenomena of electrolytic gas evol ution. In Chapter 5, Hine et al. describe the engineering aspects of the three processes used in the chi or-alkali industry, and in Chapter 6, Sides reviews the macroscopic phenomena of nucleation, growth, and detachment of bubbles, and the effect of bubbles on the conduc tivity of and mass transfer in electrolytes.

No. 29 offers new insights into the energies of activation of electrode reactions and the interfacial behavior of proteins.

No. 29 offers new insights into the energies of activation of electrode reactions and the interfacial behavior of proteins.