Organic Electrode Reactions - Fundamentals and Applications of Organic Electrochemistry - page 143

potential for metal deposition. A submonolayer
of adatoms covers the base electrode surface
uniformly, making it into an adatoms modified
electrode [48]. Such electrodes are highly useful
for electrocatalysis of oxygen reduction and
oxidation of methanol, therefore the electrodes
are currently of great importance in the
development of fuel cells.
These electrodes also allow interesting product
selectivity as follows. Cathodic reduction of
dinitrobenzenes at a silver cathode in an acidic
methanol solution mainly provides
diaminobenzenes, while the use of a silver
cathode modified by deposition of lead adatoms
forms phenylene dihydroxyamines selectively,
as shown in Eq. 5.16 [49]. This is considered to
be due to the inhibition of adsorption of the
intermediate phenylene dihydroxyamines on
the electrode surface by deposited lead atoms,
which interfere with further reduction.
(5.16)
5.4.3 Chemically Modified Electrodes
As described above, Miller's work on chiral
compound modified electrodes has stimulated