A Reference Electrode System for Electrochemical Measurements in Pure Water

Department of Chemistry, Hubei Key Lab of Electrochemical Power Sources, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, P. R. Chinatel. +86-18971431453, fax: +86-27-68754067*e-mail: qxzha@whu.edu.cn; lzhuang@whu.edu.cnReceived: September 22, 2010;&Accepted: November 14, 2010AbstractA reference hydrogen electrode systems is constructed by employing a strip of proton-type Nafion membrane as anion-conducting “bridge” to connect a reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) in an acidic solution to an electrochemi-cal system using pure water as electrolyte, in which the working electrode (WE) is placed. Using such a referenceelectrode system, the potential at the “WE/pure water” interface is equal to the equilibrium hydrogen electrode po-tential in pure water when the potential difference between RHE and WE is zero, irrespective of the pH value ofthe acidic solution in the RHE compartment. The accuracy and reproducibility of the WE potential measurementsare within 1–2 mV.Keywords: Reference electrode, Pure water, Reversible hydrogen electrode, Nafion, Ion-conducting bridgeDOI: 10.1002/elan.201000589