Cyclic voltammetry principles

Square-wave voltammetry of Osteryoung s type Application of SW techniques Linear sweep and cyclic voltammetry Principles of the linear sweep voltammetry Linear sweep voltammetry of reversible systems Irreversible and quasi-reversible processes Systems of two components and two-step charge transfers Distorting effects in LSV analysis... 

The electrochemical behavior of heterometallic clusters has been reviewed clsewbcre."" The interest in examining clusters stems from their potential to act as "electron sinks " in principle, an aggregate of several metal atoms may be capable of multiple redox state changes. The incorporation of heterometals provides the opportunity to tune the electrochemical response, effects which should be maximized in very mixed"-metal clusters. Few very mixed -metal clusters have been subjected to detailed electrochemical studies the majority of reports deal with cyclic voltammetry only. Table XII contains a summary of electrochemical investigations of "very mixed"-metal clusters. 

Although separate determination of the kinetic and thermodynamic parameters of electron transfer to transient radicals is certainly important from a fundamental point of view, the cyclic voltammetric determination of the reduction potentials and dimerization parameters may be useful to devise preparative-scale strategies. In preparative-scale electrolysis (Section 2.3) these parameters are the same as in cyclic voltammetry after replacement in equations (2.39) and (2.40) of Fv/IZT by D/52. For example, a diffusion layer thickness S = 5 x 10-2 cm is equivalent to v = 0.01 V/s. The parameters thus adapted, with no necessity of separating the kinetic and thermodynamic parameters of electron transfer, may thus be used to defined optimized preparative-scale strategies according to the principles defined and illustrated in Section 2.4. 

Cyclic voltammetry is generally considered to be of limited use in ultratrace electrochemical analysis. This is because the high double layercharging currents observed at a macroelectrode make the signal-to-back-ground ratio low. The voltammograms in Eig. 9B clearly show that at the NEEs, cyclic voltammetry can be a very powerful electroanalytical technique. There is, however, a caveat. Because the NEEs are more sensitive to electron transfer kinetics, the enhancement in detection limit that is, in principle, possible could be lost for couples with low values of the heterogeneous rate constant. This is because one effect of slow electron transfer kinetics at the NEE is to lower the measured Faradaic currents (e.g.. Fig. 8). 

Cyclic voltammetry is a powerful tool for following mechanisms since varying the scan rate v is equivalent to varying the time-scale of observation, t. In order to obtain the rate constant k of the homogeneous C reaction, the CV is obtained as a function of the scan rate, with k of the reaction then being determined from working curves calculated from theoretical principles. 

In principle, E° can be determined by the widely used electroanalytical techniques (e.g. polarography, cyclic voltammetry [25]). The combination of the techniques is also useful. It has been demonstrated recently where potentiom-etry, coulometry, and spectrophotometry have been applied [26]. The case of the cyclic voltammetry is examined below. 

In principle, the choice of a specific electrochemical technique is not crucial in the study of electrocatalytic processes. However, from a practical and qualitative point of view, cyclic voltammetry is, in most cases, suited for a rapid assessment of an electrocatalytic process triggered by POMs. The interest stems from the following general behavior most POMs undergo a series of reversible one- and two-electron reductions and these reduced forms act usually as the active species, inducing an increase of the corresponding... 

Fig. 8.11. A cyclic voltammogram for a reversible charge-transfer reaction. (Reprinted from V. D. Parker, Linear Sweep and Cyclic Voltammetry, in Comprehensive Chemical Kinetics, Electrode Kinetics, Principles and Methodology, C. H. Bamford and R. C. Compton, eds., copyright 1986, p. 148, with permission from Elsevier Science.)...

Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to both volumes and is a survey of the fundamental principles of electrode kinetics. Chapter 2 deals with mass transport — how material gets to and from an electrode. Chapter 3 provides a review of linear sweep and cyclic voltammetry which constitutes an extensively used experimental technique in the field. Chapter 4 discusses a.c. and pulse methods which are a rich source of electrochemical information. Finally, Chapter 5 discusses the use of electrodes in which there is forced convection, the so-called hydrodynamic electrodes . 

A complete comprehension of Single Pulse electrochemical techniques is fundamental for the study of more complex techniques that will be analyzed in the following chapters. Hence, the concept of half-wave potential, for example, will be defined here and then characterized in all electrochemical techniques [1, 3, 8]. Moreover, when very small electrodes are used, a stationary current-potential response is reached. This is independent of the conditions of the system prior to each potential step and even of the way the current-potential was obtained (i.e., by means of a controlled potential technique or a controlled current one) [9, 10]. So, the stationary solutions deduced in this chapter for the current-potential curves for single potential step techniques are applicable to any multipotential step or sweep technique such as Staircase Voltammetry or Cyclic Voltammetry. Moreover, many of the functional dependences shown in this chapter for different diffusion fields are maintained in the following chapters when multipulse techniques are described if the superposition principle can be applied. 

Another limitation of solid electrodes has been their complex diffusion-current response relative to time with slow-sweep voltammetry. The development of a capillary hanging-mercury-drop electrode (HMDE) by Kemula and Kublik,4,5 together with modem electronic instrumentation, allowed the principles of voltage-sweep voltammetry and cyclic voltammetry to be established. The success has been such that this has become one of the most important research tools for electrochemists concerned with the kinetics and mechanisms of electrochemical processes. These important contributions by Nicholson and Shain6 7 rely, as have all electrochemical kinetic developments, on the pioneering work by Eyring et al.8... 

As outlined above, the electrochemical properties of this redox species are strongly pH-dependent and this behavior can be used to illustrate the supramolecular nature of the interaction between the polymer backbone and the pendent redox center. The cyclic voltammetry data shown in Figure 4.17 are obtained at pH = 0, where the polymer has an open structure and the free pyridine units are protonated (pKa(PVP) = 3.3). The cyclic voltammograms obtained for the same experiment carried out at pH 5.7 are shown in Figure 4.18. At this pH, the polymer backbone is not protonated and upon aquation of the metal center the layer becomes redox-inactive, since protons are involved in this redox process. This interaction between the redox center and the polymer backbone is typical for these types of materials. Such an interaction is of fundamental importance for the electrochemical behavior of these layers and highlights the supramolecular principles which control the chemistry of thin films of these redox-active polymers. Finally, it is important to note that the photophysical properties of polymer films are very similar to those observed in solution. Since the layer thickness is much more than that of a monolayer, deactivation by the solid substrate is not observed. 

It should be noted that radical cations have a dual reactivity toward a nucleophile, depending on the properties of the latter as a base. It is possible to distinguish between these alternatives by cyclic voltammetry in cases of relatively stable radical cations (Parker and Eberson, 1969a) and by their reactivity toward pyridine nucleophiles of varying steric demands. The principle is illustrated in Fig. 6, which... 

Cyclic staircase voltammetry — Cyclic voltammetry using a staircase waveform (instead of a constant dV / d( ). The current response will be a series of transients which are measured by Fourier transform [i] or by sampling near the end of each (staircase) step [ii] thereby, in principle, eliminating or at least minimizing the - doublelayer charging component. The responses are similar to... 

Refs. [i] Heyrovsky J, Kuta J (1966) Principles ofpolarography. Academic Press, New York [ii] Marken F, Neudeck A, Bond AM (2002) Cyclic voltammetry. In Scholz F (ed) Electro analytical methods. Springer, Berlin [Hi] Scholz F, Hermes M (1999) Electrochem Commun 1 345... 

Garris PA, Ensman R, Poehhnan J, Alexander A, Langley PE, Sandberg SG, Greco PG, Wightman RM, Rebec GV. Wireless transmission of fast-scan cyclic voltammetry at a carbon-fiber microelectrode proof of principle. J. Neurosci. Methods. 2004 140 103-115. 

Note that the farther away the electric potential of the carbon surface is from the potential of zero charge point ( pzc) l e higher the disjoining pressure is. In principle, this may result in a systematic variation of the support pore size in Me/C catalysts with potential (similar to the electrocapillary curve [96,97]) and consequently the efficiency of metal particle blocking by the pore walls. Such behavior of porous carbons obviously can influence the measurements of the electrochemically active surface area and might be one of the reasons for the observed correlation between the apparent dispersion of Pt/C catalysts, measured by cyclic voltammetry, and pHpzc of the supports [95], whereas no noticeable difference in the particle size has been observed with HRTEM. Undoubtedly, this problem needs further investigation. 

Since the Co(II) to Co(III) complexes were redox active, an electrochemical method of analysis seemed viable for the quantification of the two species in the reaction. The specific electrochemical technique developed to monitor the activation reaction allowed the simultaneous quantitative measurement of (salen)Co(II) and (salen)Co(III) species in the medium. The principle of the method is based on the electro-oxidation of both species on a platinum-rotating electrode linearly polarized with respect to a standard electrode [7]. The electrochemical reactions operative with this cyclic voltammetry technique involve the single electron oxidation of each species and occur at the revolving surface of the electrode. With this salen ligand system, the Co(II) to Co(III) transformation was determined as being fully reversible, while the Co(III) to Co(IV) reaction was irreversible. 

---