Highly selective determination of copper corrosion products by voltammetric reduction in a strongly alkaline electrolyte.
Until recently, there had been two conflicting views about the order of copper oxides (Cu(2)O and CuO) in their cathodic reduction with a neutral or weak alkaline electrolyte (typically 0.1 M KCl). In 2001, we successfully employed a strongly alkaline electrolyte (SAE; i.e., 6 M KOH + 1 M LiOH) to achieve a perfect separation of the reduction peaks of the two oxides. It was then found that the oxides were reduced in SAE according to a thermodynamic order, i.e., "CuO → Cu(2)O", and also that the reduction of CuO occurred in one step. At an extremely slow scan rate of <0.2 mV s(-1), however, CuO appears to be reduced in two steps via Cu(2)O. It has also been shown that the developed method with SAE can be applied to analysis of various corrosion products, including Cu(2)S, Cu(OH)(2), and patinas. Use of the developed method has allowed researchers to clarify the mechanism of the atmospheric corrosion of copper.