The electrochemical behaviors of zinc deposition onto glassy carbon electrode (GCE) from potassium chloride solution with some conventional additives (NNO, OP-10, phenylbenzyl ketone and CH-1 brightener) have been examined by chronoamperometry. To overcome the drawbacks in estimating kinetic parameters of electrocrystallization by traditional methods, we proposed a floating-encoding genetic algorithm (FEGA) to estimate the parameters A (the nucleation rate constant per site), N~0 (the number density of active sites overr the substrate surface) and D (the diffusion coefficient of zinc ions) simultaneously by fitting the entire current transients. Based on those evolved kinetic parameters, some discussion and analysis were made. The results indicated that the kinetic parameters obtained by FEGA are more reasonable and can be employed to explain the effects of additives on the electrocrystallization of zinc.

Key words: KINETICS PARAMETER, ADDITIVE AGENTS, ZINC, GLASSY CARBON ELECTRODE, ELECTROCRYSTALLIZATION, REACTION MECHANISM