Determination of the effective thickness of a porous electrode in a flow-through reactor; effect of the specific surface area of stainless steel fibres, used as a porous cathode, during the deposition of Ag(I) ions

This study discusses the use of potential distribution analysis during the deposition of metal ions, at limiting current conditions and determines the optimum electrode thickness at which no hydrogen evolution occurs. The potential distribution studies were carried out on stainless-steel fibres of three different surface areas. The fibres were used as cathodic porous electrodes during the deposition of Ag(I) ions contained in 0.1 mol dm KNO3 and 0.6 mol dm −3 NH4OH electrolyte. The comparison between the experimental and the theoretical potential distributions show good agreement at mean linear flow rates in the range of 0.24 and 0.94 cm s. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.