AJKOER - 14-1-2016 at 10:31
Per Wikipedia on Nascent Hydrogen (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nascent_hydrogen), to quote:
"Mechanistic understanding of such reactions is now available, and the concept of nascent hydrogen is discounted, even ridiculed.[3][4]"
But, apparently, not all online resources (for example, proteincrystallography.org ) have bothered to either mention this point or took the effort to
propose an alternate path. To quote, for example:
"The atomic character of nascent hydrogen is made probable by the following experiment. A stream of oxygen is allowed to bubble through a liquid
around a cathode at which hydrogen is being liberated. Hydrogen peroxide is formed. Langmuir found that atomic hydrogen unites directly with oxygen to
form hydrogen peroxide:
H + O2 + H = HO-OH "
Source: http://chemistry.proteincrystallography.org/article18.html
My proposed updated explanation begins with the standard electrolysis of water, where at the cathode, electrons are supplied to the H3O+ ions,
reducing them:
H3O+ + e− ⟶= H2O + H⋅
It is claimed that the Hydrogen atom radicals my further react together, forming H2. See, for example, http://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/12315/electroly...
More precisely, some radical reactions of interest (source: https://books.google.com/books?id=qKoxBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA51&a... ):
H⋅ + H⋅ + M =⟶H2 + M
H⋅ + O2 + M ⟶= HO2⋅ + M
H⋅ + HO2⋅⟶= H2 + O2
And, importantly (see "Kinetics of HO2 +HO2 = H2O2 +O2: Implications for Stratospheric H2O2", by L. E. Christensen, et al. at https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&...):
HO2⋅ + HO2⋅ = H2O2 + O2
All of which implies to me that the Oxygen acting in concert with the Hydrogen atom radical is capable of forming H2O2 through a sequence of reactions
as was reported, in a single step, by "nascent hydrogen".
More interesting, the cathode during the electrolysis of water, may be a supply of H⋅ to effect other radical based reactions.
[Edited on 14-1-2016 by AJKOER]
careysub - 14-1-2016 at 11:02
At least websites citing the importance of phlogiston are in short supply (I think).
[Edited on 14-1-2016 by careysub]
Polverone - 14-1-2016 at 11:04
That nascent hydrogen article you cite from chemistry.proteincrystallography.org is actually an uncredited excerpt from A text-book of inorganic
chemistry for university students by James Riddick Partington, published 1933.
There appear to be several outdated articles on inorganic chemistry of that nature on the site, cribbed without attribution.
AJKOER - 14-1-2016 at 11:52
Not a legal scholar, but vaguely remember something about a 50 life for even originally copyrighted material. [Edit] Per Wikipedia (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyrig... ), the copyright period is generally either 50 or 70 years after the author's
death depending on nation of origin.
Apparently, one can crib, extract,..., old material and repackage. To add further insult, websites like Atomistry.com, then copyright their 'new'
content.
[Edited on 14-1-2016 by AJKOER]