Electrodeposited Polycrystalline Silver Electrodes: Surface Control for Electrocatalysis Studies

An advantageous procedure is developed, allowing prepn. of electrodeposited silver electrodes of highly controlled polycryst. surface (characterized by both electrochem. techniques and SEM), to be employed as cathodes for interphase and electrocatalysis studies. Such electrodes, tested in halide adsorption expts. in parallel with the more demanding single-crystal and polycryst. silver rod ones, acting as a ref., perform competitively in terms of both reproducibility and stability. The same expts. allow further evaluation of the surface roughness factors of the electrodeposited silver electrodes, based on (i) the Parsons-Zobel criterion and (ii) the comparison of their capacitance min. with those of the (110) single-crystal ones, both approaches resulting in very good agreement with the std. UPD and capacitive methods.