Oxidation of carbon monoxide was studcied in a static reactor at 123 degrees +/- 1 degrees C, wtith NiO as catalyst. An alternating electric field of about 22,000 volts per centimeter, peak to peak, was applied normal to the catalytic Surfaces. The rate of oxidation was thereby enhanced by a factor of 6 at 100 cycles per second, with maximum enhancement at between 100 and 200 cycles per second.

The potential on the surface of a semiconductor is formulated analytically as a function of surface charge concentration by a double integration of Poisson's equation in one-dimensional form. All combinations of the types of semiconductors and surface charge have been considered, as they produce accumulation, depletion, or inversion layers. The variation of diffusion potential as a function of distance from the surface towards the interior of the semiconductor is also discussed.

Analytic expressions are derived which relate the incremental electrical conductivity in an accumulation layer on a semiconductor to the concentration of surface ions. The theory is checked both by comparing the predicted results with published graphs which were obtained by numerical integrations, and by evaluating three separate sets of experimental data on different semiconducting materials. The data of Weller and Voltz for the effect of oxygen adsorbed on Cr20, do not fit the assumptions of the theory, since their particles are too small. The data of Smith for oxygen adsorbed on CuO, and the data of Molinari et al. for hydrogen on ZnO indicate that the observed trends are all in the proper direction and of the proper magnitude to support this work, but they are not of sufficient precision to support these derivations conclusively. Although a definitive quantitative experimental check remains to be done, the reasonableness of the derivation has heen estahlished.