Rapid pretreatment of a solid silver electrode for routine analytical practice

A very fast electrochemical method for renovation of solid electrodes and storage of the electrodes in a ready for use state, as well as necessary original hardware, is presented in this work. The device has the shape of a cylindrical container with a volume of about 3-5 mL filled with an electrolyte solution in which auxiliary and reference electrodes are placed. It may be fastened in a typical electrochemical cell. The method relies on suitable electrode polarization in the device. During the renovation process, the electrode is inside the device and immediately after the activation, it is moved into the tested solution where the measurement is realized. The solid electrode renovated before each measurement demonstrates many properties which are specific only for the dropping mercury electrode. Satisfactory repeatability and reproducibility were reached in several thousands regeneration cycles over a few weeks of the electrode and device exploitation. To evaluate the method and device differential capacity-potential (C-d-E) and capacity-time (C-d-t) curves, as well as voltammograms (I-E) of oxygen dissolved in solution were recorded. In this work a solid polycrystalline silver electrode was used. This device may be applied in routine analytical practice, and also in the investigation of the adsorption processes or corrosion of the metals.