History of Modern Thermoelectrochemistry

Abstract

Classical industrial processes like electrodeposition, galvanising, or electrochemical oxidation of materials are temperature dependent. Traditional processing takes place in open cells. Consequently, many “trivial” thermoelectrochemical investigations in open cells, at moderate temperature variation, have been described. The majority of such studies are dedicated to the improvement of efficiency [1–26]. Deposition of metals, among them copper [1, 2], zinc [3–5], nickel and its alloys [6, 7], chromium [8] and cobalt [9, 10] has been studied. Also electrochemical generation of oxide layers on zinc and on aluminium [4, 12] was subject of papers. Temperature dependence of less common phenomena, e.g., calcareous scaling [13], electrostimulated leaching of minerals [14, 15] or growth of nanocables [16] has been studied. Classical thermoelectrochemical experiments provided information about important partial processes as hydrogen electrosorption [17] or lithium ion intercalation into graphite [18]. Deposition processes have been investigated by means of the electrochemical quartz microbalance under temperature variation [19]. Uncommon electrode materials were single crystal platinum [20] and diamond electrodes [21], as well as paste electrodes made of graphite and ionic liquids [22]. Ionic liquids as solvents have been applied in open cells at moderate temperature variation [23, 24]. An interesting application of classical thermoelectrochemistry dealt with a process named electrodialysis [25].