At 08:42 AM 10/30/2002 -0800, David Weinshenker wrote:
I suspect that with the silver catalyst, the intermediate may be silver peroxide... perhaps silver oxide easily thakes up an oxygen from H2O2, leaving water and silver peroxide, which is an unstable compound that easily decomposes into silver oxide and oxygen?
If you look at the structure of peroxide, this seems an unlikely intermediate. The natural break point in the molecule is into two OH groups, which then recombine into H2O and O2. That's roughly how the catalytic decomposition of peroxide in biological systems works (although there is a whole mess of electron transport chains to even things out and keep the temp reasonable).
As far as any proposed "new" catalyst, it sounds as if y'all are trying to reinvent the "cermet" beads we've already got... they appear to be just what you are expecting to end up with: may need preheating to achieve activity but will survive elevated temperatures.
Hopefully also simpler to make. My ideal catalyst would be a base metal or alloy that readily forms useful oxides on the surface with minimal treatment at room temperature, possibly with nitric acid or another strong oxidizing agent. One of my big problems with the cermet catalyst is that not only is the composition some deep dark secret, but I have never heard anyone discuss how Kevin went about coming up with it.
-p
Mars or Bust!
www.marssociety.com
_______________________________________________
ERPS-list mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
