ABSTRACT
The use of ultrasound on electrochemical systems or sonoelectrochemistry was ›rst observed by Moriguchi (1934) as early as 1934, and since then, it has continued to be an active and exciting research area. In the 1930s, Schmid and Ehert (1937a) also studied the ultrasonic effects on the passivity of metals and the generation of gases by electrolysis (Schmid and Ehert, 1937b). Nearly 30 years later, Kolb and Nyborg (1956) demonstrated the movement of liquid induced by ultrasound, known as acoustic streaming, and in the same year Penn et al. (1959) studied the effect of ultrasound on concentration gradient in the electrolyte and at the electrode surface. In the mid-1960s, for the ›rst time, Bard (1963) showed that ultrasound caused an increase in the mass transport of electroactive species from the bulk solution to the electrode surface in controlled potential coulometry experiments. Since then, extensive work has been carried out in which high power ultrasound (20-100 kHz) was applied to various electrochemical processes leading to several industrial applications and many publications over a wide range of subject areas such as electrodeposition, electroplating, electrochemical dissolution, corrosion testing, nanotechnology, and fuel cell technology.
