Voltammetric examination of hydroquinone at ordinary and nano-architecture platinum electrodes

Abstract

The electrochemical behavior of hydroquinone was examined experimentally using cyclic voltammetry, convolution transform, and deconvolution transform at clean ordinary and nanostructured mesoporous platinum electrodes in 1 mol/l HClO4. The cyclic voltammogram of hydroquinone (HQ) at an ordinary Pt electrode displays an anodic peak at 0.610 V and a cathodic peak at 0.117 V, with a scan rate of 50 mV·s–1. Excellent linearity was recorded between the anodic or cathodic peak currents of hydroquinone and the square root of the scan rate (υ1/2). The anodic and cathodic peak potential separation (∆Ep) was found to be 463 ± 3 mV vs. the saturated calomel electrode (SCE). It was noted that the value of peak potential separation increased with increasing the scan rate. The type of electrode reaction at both platinum electrodes in 1 mol/l HClO4 was examined and discussed. The electrochemical parameters and the nature of the mechanistic pathway of the investigated HQ were determined experimentally and ascertained via a numerical simulation method.

Keywords

• hydroquinone; cyclic voltammetry; convolution transform; deconvolution transform; numerical simulation.