Learning Outcomes:
On completion, it is expected that the students will be able to:
- Setup an appropriate 3-electrode electrochemical cell for effective electroanalytical measurement.
- Clean and polish working electrodes, and clean reference and counter electrodes prior to measurement.
- Select the appropriate reference electrode for an experimental system.
- Interpret experiment data from a variety of electroanalytical techniques, such as cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry.
- Have a greater understanding of electrode thermodynamics and kinetics.
- Extract useful information from electroanalytical datasets, such as diffusion co-efficient and kinetic rate constants.
Indicative Module Content:
This module comprises 6 x 3h laboratory practical experiments.
Experiment 1: Electrochemical thermodynamics. Reference electrodes in aqueous and non-aqueous systems.
Experiment 1B: Exchange current density of the hydrogen evolution (HER) and oxygen reduction (ORR) reactions.
Experiment 2: Steady-state voltammetry at the micro disc electrode. Effect of electrode size and shape on the response. Electrode fabrication.
Experiment 2B: Chronoamperometry of ruthenium(III) hexamine, Inner sphere and outer sphere mechanisms of electron transfer.
Experiment 3: Cyclic voltammetry of reversible and irreversible redox couples. The EC Mechanism. Proton-coupled electron transfer.
Experiment 3B: Proton-coupled electron transfer for anthraquinone-sulfonate. The electron transfer kinetics of a self-assembled monolayer.