Introduction
Reference electrodes are necessary to control the potential of a working electrode (e.g., during voltammetric measurements) or to measure the potential of an indicator electrode in potentiometric measurements, since the Galvani potential difference of a single electrode is not measurable [1]. An ideal reference electrode would have the following characteristics:
(i) It is chemically and electrochemically reversible, i.e., its potential is governed by the Nernst equation, (ii) the potential should remain practically constant, when current flows through the electrochemical cell (ideally nonpolarizable electrode), and (iii) the thermal coefficient should be small. Whereas there is no practical reference electrode that offers all these properties to the same extent, a variety of reference systems very close to that ideal behavior exist [2, 3]. The choice and construction of the reference electrode depend on the experimental conditions such as temperature, pressure, size,...
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Kahlert, H. (2014). Reference Electrodes. In: Kreysa, G., Ota, Ki., Savinell, R.F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Applied Electrochemistry. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6996-5_237
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