Chronoamperometric Estimation of the Nucleation Rate, the Number of Nuclei and the Diffusion Coefficient During Electrocrystallization

Abstract

Assuming the mixed kinetics of the process, new formulas are derived for calculating the diffusion coefficient, the nucleation rate and the number of growing clusters based on the experimental curves of the time-current dependence during potentiostatic nucleation and growth during electrocrystallization. A number of published experimental data have been analyzed from this point of view. It is shown that during crystallization on an active metal substrate, the number of nuclei can sharply increase with potential, unlike structureless substrates (such as glass carbon), where this number weakly depends on the potential.