Question

Electrochemical voltaic cells convert the chemical energy from redox reactions into electricity. Batteries incorporate voltaic cells in practical sources of portable energy. There are many other processes that involve redox reactions, such as corrosion and electrolysis.

-Identify a process that involves a redox reaction.

-Determine if the process is spontaneous or nonspontaneous.

-Briefly describe the process, and address how the process can be beneficial or harmful.

Your post should be substantive and approximately 150-200 words.

Answer 1

Corrosion is one of the processes which involves the redox reaction. First of all, I would like to tell you, what is the meaning of corrosion.

Corrosion means the degradation of metal in the presence of environmental stimuli like water.  

Very well know the reaction to the corrosion chemistry is the dissolution of zinc in the presence of dilute HCl.

Redox Reaction,

Zn + 2HCl ---> ZnCl2 + H2

Half Cell Reactions at different electrode

Anode (oxidation takes place):

Zn --> Zn²⁺ + 2e^-

Here, zinc will oxidized from zero oxidation to +2 oxidation.

Cathode (reduction takes place):

2H⁺ + 2e^- ---> H₂

Here, H⁺ ion reduced from +1 oxidation to zero oxidation state hydrogen.

The E⁰_cell for the above reaction is positive hence the reaction is spontaneous. Almost all the corrosion reactions are the spontaneous reaction (occur by without involvement of external stimuli like heat, temperature).

Corrosion is a harmful process because it damages the things made up of metals. To protect them from the corrosion, we use galvanization techniques to protect the things from corrosion. Galvanization is the process of coating metal with some type of oiling material such as paint which prevents the metal to be corroded.