A comparison of the effects of chemisorbed sulfide ions on the electrochemical behavior of gold and silver in thiourea electrolytes

Abstract

It is shown that, in the case of gold, the catalytic activity of sulfur adatoms is significantly higher in the anodic dissolution of metal than in its deposition. In both processes, the catalytic activity increases with increasing overvoltage. The catalytic activity of sulfur adatoms is considerably lower for silver than for gold both in the metal deposition and dissolution, and it is virtually independent of overvoltage. In the case of silver, the catalytic activity of sulfur adatoms in the electrodeposition is slightly higher than in the metal dissolution. There results are compared with the action of heavy metal adatoms on the dissolution and deposition of gold and silver in the cyanide solutions. It is shown that the above regularities are qualitatively true for both systems. The main distinction is that the catalytic activity of sulfide ions in the thiourea solutions reaches a plateau with increasing surface coverage with sulfur adatoms, whereas the activity of heavy metals passes through a maximum with increasing surface coverage. The results are explained in view of earlier determined regularities of kinetics of electrode processes in these systems and the effect of electrocatalysis on these regularities.