Use of ozone to prepare silver oxides

Abstract

The possible use of ozone to produce higher oxides was analyzed thermodynamically. Because the activity of oxygen in ozone is approx. 1018 at room temperature and approx. 108 at 773 K, ozone may react with metals to yield higher-oxidation-state products than does an ambient pressure of pure oxygen. In agreement with this thermodynamic prediction, silver oxides (AgO and Ag2O) were synthesized experimentally by blowing a gas mixture of 6 vol% ozone and oxygen through a water-cooled lance. Neither Ag3O4 nor Ag2O3 was detected. Slow oxygen diffusion into a metal and/or reaction products and decomposition of unstable oxides that are formed successively are obstacles to practical applications of syntheses via ozone oxidation.