Dissociative adsorption dynamics of formaldehyde on a platinum electrode surface; one-dimensional domino? Original Research Article

When a potentiostatically controlled polycrystalline platinum electrode is dipped into a sulfuric acid aqueous solution containing formaldehyde, the surface is covered by CO, which is formed as a result of the dissociative adsorption of formaldehyde. The kinetics of this dissociative adsorption process is investigated by the combination of the electrochemical and the laser desorption methods. The surface CO coverage is linearly increased as a function of time. This zeroth order kinetics is explained by the domino mechanism.