Oxidación de Hidrógeno sobre Electrodos de Oro

Abstract

The Hydrogen oxidation on gold electrodes in sulphuric acid solution is studied. The reaction is irreversible, since atomic H, which appears as reaction intermediate, diffuses inside of the metal. The reactive is introduced in two ways: by electrolysis at a cathodic potential during different times and saturating the solution with the gaseous reactive. During the electrolysis the different crystalline planes reconstruct and the reaction kinetics is not the same on the reconstructed plane than on the unreconstructed one. The catalytic influence of the incipient hydrous gold oxide is shown. The presence of sulfate ions leads to a characteristic profile at the double layer charge potential region, in which faradic currents can be distinguished from those capacitive contributions. During the metal treatment a surface compound is formed. An attempt has been done to characterize it by FTIR