Convective Warburg impedance

Equation (11.71) is the Warburg impedance. The impedance response for a stagnant layer is often imposed incorrectly for situations where convective diffusion takes place. The more correct approach is to accovmt explicitly for the role of convection. 

For details and an exact derivation of the reader is referred to ref. [13]. The derivation also shows that Z is in series with as shown in Fig. 4.13a. Typically, the Warburg impedance leads to a linear increase of Z with rising Z" and the slope is 45° as also shown in Fig, 4.13a. In this case, Z has been calculated assuming an infinite thickness of the diffusion layer. Any convection of the liquid limits the thickness of the diffusion layer. The latter is limited to a well defined value when a rotating disc electrode is used (see Section 4.2.3). In this case, the impedance spectrum is bent off at low frequencies as shown in Fig. 4.13b. The Z branch i.s only linear at its high frequency end where it shows a slope of 45°. 

Because of the assumption of semiinfinite diffusion made by Warburg for the derivation of the diffusion impedance, it predicts that the impedance diverges from the real axis at low frequencies, that is, according to the above analysis, the dc-impedance of the electrochemical cell would be infinitely large. It can be shown that the Warburg impedance is analogous to a semi-infinite transmission line composed of capacitors and resistors (Fig. 8) [3]. However, in many practical cases, a finite diffusion layer thickness has to be taken into consideration. The first case to be considered is that of enforced or natural convection in an... 

The kinetic impedance Zj represents the faradaie impedance in the absence of a concentration overpotential. In the simplest case, the kinetie impedance corresponds to the transfer resistance Rt, but in more complicated situations it may include several circuit elements. The diffusion impedance Z describes the contribution of the concentration overpotential to the faradaic impedance and therefore depends on the transport phenomena in solution. In the absence of convection, it is referred to as the Warburg impedance and, in the opposite case, as the Nernst impedance Z. ... 

The Warburg impedance in the presence of convective flow. J. Electrochem. Soc.,... 

In Fig. 11, the oscillation above the Warburg straight hne (at frequencies from 0.4 to 0.14 Hz)) is related to the Nemst hypothesis. A numerical calculation taking into account the convection term in the transport equation showed that the impedance diagram is below the Warburg straight line. 

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