CHEMISTRY GLOSSARY

lanthanum    →   lantan

Lanthanum was discovered by Carl Gustaf Mosander (Sweden) in 1839. The origin of the name comes from the Greek word lanthanein meaning to lie hidden. It is soft, silvery-white, malleable, ductile metal. Readily tarnishes in air. Reaction with water releases hydrogen gas. Metal ignites and burns readily. Reacts with oxidants. Lanthanum is found with rare earths in monazite and bastnasite. Monazite sand typical contains 25 % lanthanum. It is used in the electrodes of high-intensity, carbon-arc lights. Because it gives glass refractive properties, it is used in expensive camera lenses.

photomultiplier    →   fotomultiplikator

Photomultiplier (photomultiplier tube or PMT) is a very versatile and sensitive detector of radiant energy in the ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. A typical photomultiplier tube consists of a photoemissive cathode (photocathode) followed by focusing electrodes, an electron multiplier (dynode) and an electron collector (anode) in a vacuum tube.

polarography    →   polarografija

Polarography is a volumetric technique which is based on a diffusion controlled analyte travel to the surface of dropping mercury electrode (DME). The surface of the working electrode (dropping mercury electrode) is constantly renewed under dropping conditions and, thus, the conditions under which reaction takes place are readily reproducible. Depolarisation potential enables identification of ions present in the solution, and by measuring the diffusion current their concentration is calculated. Polarography was discovered in 1922 by the Czech chemist Jaroslav Heyrovský (1890-1967).

potentiometric titration    →   potenciometrijska titracija

Potentiometric titration is a volumetric method in which the potential between two electrodes is measured (referent and indicator electrode) as a function of the added reagent volume. Types of potentiometric titrations for the determination of analytes in photoprocessing solutions include acid-base, redox, precipitation, and complexometric.

Potentiometric titrations are preferred to manual titrations, since they are more accurate and precise. They are also more easily adapted to automation, where automated titration systems can process larger volumes of samples with minimal analyst involvement.

A titration curve has a characteristic sigmoid curve. The part of the curve that has the maximum change marks the equivalence point of the titration. The first derivative, ΔE/ΔV, is the slope of the curve, and the endpoint occurs at the volume, V', where ΔE/ΔV has the maximum value.

redox potential    →   redoks potencijal

Redox potential is the potential of a reversible oxidation-reduction electrode measured with respect to a reference electrode, corrected to the hydrogen electrode, in a given electrolyte.

solar cell    →   sunčeva ćelija

Solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is a device that captures sunlight and transforms it directly to electricity. All solar cells make use of photovoltaic effect, so often they are called photovoltaic cells. Almost all solar cells are built from solid-state semiconducting materials, and in the vast majority of these the semiconductor is silicon.

The photovoltaic effect involves the generation of mobile charge carriers-electrons and positively charged holes-by the absorption of a photon of light. This pair of charge carriers is produced when an electron in the highest filled electronic band of a semiconductor (the valence band) absorbs a photon of sufficient energy to promote it into the empty energy band (the conduction band). The excitation process can be induced only by a photon with an energy corresponding to the width of the energy gap that separates the valence and the conduction band. The creation of an electron-hole pair can be converted into the generation of an electrical current in a semiconductor junction device, wherein a layer of semiconducting material lies back to back with a layer of either a different semiconductor or a metal. In most photovoltaic cells, the junction is p-n junction, in which p-doped and n-doped semiconductors are married together. At the interface of the two, the predominance of positively charged carriers (holes) in the p-doped material and of negatively charged carriers (electrons) in the n-doped material sets up an electric field, which falls off to either side of the junction across a space-charge region. When absorption of a photon in this region generates an electron-hole pair, these charge carriers are driven in opposite directions by the electric field, i.e. away from the interface and toward the top and bottom of the two-layer structure, where metal electrodes on these faces collect the current. The electrode on the top layer (through which light is absorbed) is divided into strips so as not to obscure the semiconducting layers below. In most widely used commercial solar cells, the p-doped and n-doped semiconductive layers are formed within a monolithic piece of crystalline silicon. Silicon is able to absorb sunlight at those wavelengths at which it is most intense-from the near-infrared region (wavelengths of around 1200 nm) to the violet (around 350 nm).

Tafel plot    →   Tafelov dijagram

Tafel plot is the graph of the logarithm of the current density j against the overpotential η in electrochemistry in the high overpotential limit. An electrode when polarised frequently yields a current potential relationship over a region which can be approximated by:

where η is change in open circuit potential, i is the current density, B and i₀ is constants. B is known as the Tafel Slope. If this behaviour is observed a plot of the semilogarithmic components is known as the Tafel line and the diagram is called the Tafel diagram.

Heyrovsky-Ilkovic equation    →   Heyrovsky-Ilkovičeva jednadžba

The Heyrovsky-Ilkovic equation describes the entire current-potential curve (polarographic wave) of a reversible redox system in polarography

where R is the gas constant, T is the absolute temperature, F is the Faraday constant, n denotes the number of electrons taking part in the electrode reaction. E_1/2 is a unique potential (for a given reaction and supporting electrolyte) termed the half-wave potential.

In order to obtain E_1/2 from the above equation, we plot a graph of ln[(i_d-i)/i] against E. The intercept on the x-axis gives then an accurate value of E_1/2. The slope of the obtained straight line is equal to nF/RT from which n is determined.