A preliminary study on electrodeposition and decolorization activity of β-PbO2-coated titanium electrodes from tetrafluoroborate solutions

High active and good durable β-PbO2-coated titanium electrode has been electrodeposited from tetrafluoroborate solution. The activity and durability of PbO2 coating prepared in tetrafluoroborate bath is higher than that in nitrate bath. In addition, all the prepared electrodes in tetrafluoroborate solutions mainly consist of β-PbO2, and the obtained crystals exhibit the preferential directions of β (1 0 1) and β (3 0 1) of PbO2. The effect of various dopants such as F, Fe and Bi on the structure, morphology and activity of the PbO2 electrode has also been investigated using chronopotentiometry, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) methods. The results show that the morphology and mean crystallite size are affected a lot by the dopants. The F-modification increases the durability and decreases the activity; the doping of Fe and Bi strongly improves the activity but does not enhance the durability. In all dopants, bismuth is the most effective for the decolorization of methyl orange.