Behaviour of surface-active substances at the dropping mercury electrode

Abstract

It is found that the differential capacity of the dropping mercury electrode is affected mainly in two ways by added surface-active substances. At about the electrocapillary zero there is a strong lowering of the capacity due to adsorption of surface-active substances. At some higher cathodic potential there is enormous increase in differential capacity leading to a maximum and is followed by a sharp fall in the capacity; the latter is due to the desorption taking place more or less sharply at the higher cathodic potentials. The theory of the phenomenon has been formulated.