DRIFT STUDY OF HEMATITE ADHERED ONTO SILVER AND MERCURY

Diffuse reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (DRIFT) ha s been used as a tool to study colloidal hematite adhered onto silver and mercury electrodes from suspensions using sodium perchlorate as el ectrolyte. The results show a shift of one lattice vibrational band to ward higher energies when hematite particles are attached onto the met al surface, the shift being more important for mercury. Also the band width increases upon attachment, which can be explained by particle ag gregation on the surface. The band shift can be attributed to specific interactions between the colloidal particles and the metal surface. ( C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.