Electrochemical oxidation of saccharose at copper electrode in alkaline media

In spite of comprehensive investigations have been carried out during the past several decades on the electrocatalytic oxidation of alcohols, poly-alcohols and carbohydrates at different catalytic metal electrodes for the sake of the development of analytical sensors and fuel cells [1,2], a few of them directly oriented towards saccharose (sucrose, 12 22 11 C H O ) electro-oxidation as a carbohydrate compound. Various authors have shown that carbohydrates can be oxidized directly at a variety of electrode materials, including metals such as platinum [3, 4], gold [4, 5], copper [4, 6-8], indium [4], rhodium [4], or metallic complexes such as cobalt phthalocyanine [9]. In this research work, the use of metallic copper as an electrode has been studied for some reasons. Although considerable currents were observed at it, it is too cheap to afford practical applications.