What's the value of standard potential of carbon?
The hydrogen and Carbon are in the electrochemical series despite being non metals hydrogen has zero potential difference what about carbon?
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1 Answer
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To look up the position of carbon in the electrochemical series, you would have to guess what species carbon is oxidised to. This is most likely carbon dioxide; you would then have to look up the value of $E^0$ for the $\ce{CO2}/\ce{C}$ couple in a textbook or some other data source. The standard reduction potential for the $\ce{CO2}/\ce{C}$ couple is given in Shriver & Atkins 5th ed as +0.207 V. Loosely speaking, this means that carbon is harder to oxidise than hydrogen, or in other words, carbon is below hydrogen in the electrochemical series (if you take Li to be at the top).
Just a note: The standard reduction potential for the $\ce{H+} / \ce{H2}$ half-cell is 0 V solely because we decided to define it as such.
answered Jun 28, 2015 at 12:57