Authors: Elton Sitta Hamilton Varela
Publish Date: 2007/05/23
Volume: 12, Issue: 5, Pages: 559-567
Abstract
In the present work results of the interaction between methanol and oxidized platinum surfaces as studied via transients of opencircuit potentials are presented The surface oxidation before the exposure to interaction with 05 M methanol was performed at different polarization times at 14 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode RHE In spite of the small changes in the initial oxide content the increase of the prepolarization time induces a considerable increase of the time needed for the oxide consumption during its interaction with methanol The influence of the identity of the chemisorbing anion on the transients was also investigated in the following media 01 M HClO4 05 M H2SO4 and 05 M H2SO4 + 01 mM Cl− It was observed that the transient time increases with the energy of anion chemisorption and more importantly without a change in the shape of the transient meaning that free platinum sites are available at the topmost layer all over the transient and not only in the potential region of small oxide ‘coverage’ The impact of the prepolarization time and the effect of anion chemisorption on the transients are rationalized in terms of the presence of surface and subsurface oxygen driven by place exchange
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