The electrical condition of a gold surface during the absorption of gases and their catalytic combustion

In 1905 Bone and Wheeler, in their memoir upon "The Combination of Hydrogen and Oxygen in Contact with Hot Surface," drew attention to the possible connection between the electrical conditions of hot surfaces and their power of rendering "condensed" or "occluded" gases chemically active. Shortly afterwards Bone and Makower, in a series of unpublished experiments, observed that a gold surface becomes negatively electrified during the catalytic combination of hydrogen and oxygen at 300° or there abouts. The recent inventions, by Bone and his co-workers, of processes of "flameless incandescent surface combustion," whereby the constituents of an explosive gaseous mixture, in correct combinig proportions, are caused to combine at a highly accelerated rate, and without development of flame, in contact with (or within the pores or interstices of) an incandescent solid, have again called attention to the important rôle played by hot surfaces in accelerating combustion, and to the great economic advantages derivable thereform. The phenomenon is now known to depend upon a peculiar "activation" of the combustible gas, and probably of the oxygen also, by association with the surface. At relatively low temperatures the intensity of such action varies with the chemical characters and physical condition of the surface, but it rapidly increases with the temperature until at bright incandescence there is little to choose between the catalysing power of chemically different surfaces, porosity and refractoriness being now the dominant factors.