survey of the properties of silver compounds shows that most silver salts decompose before melting, but silver metaphosphate solutions in sodium metaphosphate were stable up to, if not above, 950’ C. This is probably another example of increased stability due to complex formation. Therefore, the existence of current-voltage waves for redox couples may be due to the fact that the oxidized and reduced species are both complexed to nearly the same degree.
The other metallic ions studied gave diffusion currents proportional to concentration, but the relationship was only observed qualitatively. The results obtained from the analyses of the polarograms are summarized in Table I1 and a summary of all observations is given in Table 111. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors express their appreciation to the National Science Foundation, which supported the vork described.
CONCLUSIONS
Polarographic studies of several metal oxides and sulfate ion in fused alkali metaphosphates demonstrated the formation of several stable species which exhibited diffusion-controlled currentvoltage curves. The wave heights of the uranium(V1) reduction wave were proportional to the concentration of uranium, thus demonstrating the analytical utility of polarography for the determination of the metal in the melts.
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