The effect of temperature on the kinetics and mechanism of silver electrodeposition

The influence of temperature on the kinetics of the electrochemical phase formation of silver onto glassy carbon was studied by means of potentiodynamic and potentiostatic techniques. It was found that as the temperature increased, a smaller overpotential was required to initiate the deposition process of silver. The experimental current density transients were adequately described by a theoretical model involving the simultaneous presence of two processes, namely adsorption of silver ions and multiple 3D nucleation and growth limited by diffusion. It was also shown that for all the temperatures considered, there exists an overpotential (−0.25 V), at which the maximum values for the nucleation rate and the number density of active sites were obtained.