Electrochemical nucleation with diffusion-limited growth. Properties and analysis of transients

A general equation for the potentiostatic transient for the case of electro chemical nucleation with diffusion-controlled growth has been published rec ently [L. Heerman, A. Tarallo, J. Electroanal. Chem. 470 (1999) 70]. This e quation essentially is a correction to the model of Scharifker and Mostany [J. Electroanal. Chem. 177 ( 1984) 13] but leads to quite different predict ions. This paper discusses the differences between these two models with sp ecial emphasis on the analysis of experimental transients. Numerical data a re presented which allow the determination of the nucleation parameters (nu cleation rate constant A and site density N-o). Finally, it is shown that p lots of I/I-max versus t/t(max), which are widely used in the literature fo r the graphical representation of experimental results, are not very sensit ive and can easily lead to misinterpretation of experimental results. (C) 2 000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.