[hersheybenjamin]

Hello all,

I'm brand new to these forums, so please forgive and inform me if I'm not following any of the protocols... Anyway, I've been wondering something that I can't seem to find an answer to:

Could it be possible for a strong static electric charge to affect the rate of a chemical reaction? For example, if I were to take a piece of iron, charge it to a few hundred thousand volts (either positive or negative), and expose it to ozone which is also at the same voltage, could the electric charge have any appreciable effect on the rate at which the iron rusts? What if the ozone (or reactive agent) is at a much different voltage from the iron?

Any insight into this question would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[Enthalpy]

Hi hersheybenjamin, welcome here!

Electricity has a tremendous effect on some chemical reactions, especially the cited oxidation of metals. It's less a matter of big potentials than of strong currents, as the main process is just to provide ions at the proper place in sufficient amounts.

Take a battery: when not in use, hence without an external current, it shouldn't discharge; but using it by drawing a current lets one constituent metal corrode. As a small battery provides much current for a long time, chemical effects need much current, conversely.

Iron is seldom used in electrochemistry but some batteries exist. Same for ozone; while in principle possible, electrochemistry tends to use liquids that contain ions, called electrolytes, and then the voltages are around 1V. The opposite desire exists as well: protect iron from corrosion, and the method is called "sacrificial electrode", typically a layer of zinc on steel - that's electrochemistry again.

As an exception, electric discharge in gases is used to manufacture semiconductor chips - I can't think of other uses right now. It wastes hundreds of volts to achieve ions needing just a few volts, and the current in the mA region would be a million times too small for metallurgy for instance, but to etch 0.02µm thickness on a chip it's fine: not too fast, gaseous products, efficient against very inert compounds. It's called "reactive ion etching", "sputtering" and variants.