Effect of cathodic reduction on catalytic activity of amorphous alloy electrodes for electrooxidation of sulfite

Abstract

Active electrode materials for a new zinc electrowinning process, in which the thermodynamic cell voltage is about half that of the conventional process by replacing oxygen evolution by anodic oxidation of SO₂ produced in the zinc smelting process have been studied. Immersion in HF solution and subsequent cyclic voltammetry (CV) in sulfuric acid are known to be effective surface activation treatments of the amorphous alloy electrodes. The galvanostatic cathodic reduction (CR) treatment was applied to obtain further activation for sulfite oxidation for HF- and CV-treated electrodes prepared from amorphous nickel-valve metal-platinum group metal alloys. This treatment has been found to be effective in enhancing the activity. Among the amorphous Ni-40Nb alloys containing platinum group elements, the platinum-containing electrode showed the highest catalytic activity, which was higher than that of platinized platinum. Furthermore, the electrocatalytic activities of CR-treated electrodes prepared from amorphous alloys containing platinum and rhodium, and platinum and ruthenium were higher than that of the electrode containing only platinum. According to XPS analysis of the amorphous Ni-40Nb-1Pt-1Ru alloy specimen the enrichment of platinum and ruthenium occurred by CV treatment, and a small amount of oxidized platinum and ruthenium species remained on the electrode surfaces, but most of them were cathodically reduced to the metallic state by CR treatment. High catalytic activities for sulfite oxidation can be attributed to the metallic state of platinum and ruthenium contained in the alloy electrodes, even though the activity of these electrocatalysts is higher than that of pure Pt or Ru.