Electrochemical Quartz Crystal Microbalance EQCM

The quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) is a very sensitive technique allowing measurements of mass changes in the nanogram range. Under high vacuum conditions, the attachment to the quartz crystal surface of a foreign layer of mass dm yields a frequency shift Sfrn which follows the Sauerbrey equation 

It has been pointed out, that the coupling of the QCM and electrochemical techniques should provide information on the amount of ad-species rigidly attached to the electrode surface, in terms of mass change with potential. So far, the EQCM has been used for the study of adsorption phenomena in various electrocata-lytic systems.  

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An electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM or QCM) can be used to estimate the surface roughness of deposited lithium [43],... 

The electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) is a powerful tool for elucidating interfacial reactions based on the simultaneous measurement of electrochemical parameters and mass changes at electrode surfaces. The microbalance is based on a quartz crystal wafer, which is sandwiched between two electrodes, used to induce an electric field (Figure 2-20). The field produces a mechanical oscillation... 

In the case of Ni(OH)2 and conductive polymer electrodes, solvent and anions intercalate into the electrode at anodic potentials. Electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) is a useful technique for monitoring the ingress and egress of solvent and anions in these materials. 

The electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) is a very useful technique for detecting small mass changes at the electrode surface that accompany electrochemical processes. In 1880, Jacques and Pierre Curie discovered that when stress was applied to some crystals, such as quartz, it resulted in an electrical potential across the... 

We have found new CO-tolerant catalysts by alloying Pt with a second, nonprecious, metal (Pt-Fe, Pt-Co, Pt-Ni, etc.) [Fujino, 1996 Watanabe et al., 1999 Igarashi et al., 2001]. In this section, we demonstrate the properties of these new alloy catalysts together with Pt-Ru alloy, based on voltammetric measurements, electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM), electrochemical scanning tunneling microscopy (EC-STM), in situ Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). 

An application of an electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) in the study of the A11/HCIO4 system shows that even at a potential about 0.5 V more negative than the onset of AuO formation (the so-called preoxide region), the resonant frequency of the Au-covered quartz crystal decreases as that of the surface mass increases. A comparison of a voltammogram with the potential dependence of the micro-balance frequency for an Au electrode is shown in Figs. 6a and 6b. 

The electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) method was first used to study underpotential deposition in 1988 for Pb, Bi, Cu,... 

A technique for such measurements is the electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM figure 14) [71]. Here, the working electrode is part of a quartz crystal oscillator that is mounted on the wall of the electrochemical cell and exposed to the electrolyte. The resonance frequency / of the quartz crystal is proportional to mass changes Am A/ Am. With base frequencies around 10 MHz, the determination of Am in the ng range is possible. 

Electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) has been used [65] to study adsorption/desorption of iodide on Au(lll) electrodes. The coverages obtained at different potentials were quite close to those estimated from STM images and SXS measurements. 

Pb UPD on polycrystalline An electrode in 0.1 M perchloric acid solution has been studied by Henderson et al. [484]. In this study, CV, electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM), and probe beam deflection methods have been used. It has been found that Pb UPD proceeds in three steps. The first step comprised water ejection from the gold surface. This step was followed by metal UPD accompanied by the removal of the adsorbed OH. Also, Zeng and Bruckenstein have studied UPD and adsorption of Pb on pc-Au electrodes, applying XPS and TOF-SIMS method in case of 0.1 M NaCl electrolyte [485], and EQCM in case of 0.1 M NaCl04 and 0.1 M NaCl electrolytes [486]. In the presence of chloride anions, the adsorption of Pb—Cl complex has been found. 

Use of Electrochemical Quartz Crystal Microbalance (EQCM) 281 Use of Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy (SECM) 281 References 284... 

Although less common, some third-order chemical sensors have found significant applications not only in sensing but also in research. One such example is Electrochemical Quartz Crystal Microbalance (EQCM). With EQCM, an electrochemical experiment can be performed in its inherently large experimental space, that is, various electrochemical waveforms, impedance analysis, gating, and different mass loading. As the dimensionality of the experiment is increased, so is its information content. 

The Electrochemical Quartz Crystal Microbalance (EQCM) The resonant frequency of a quartz crystal oscillator is perturbed from its base value (f ) by attached overlayers. For thin, rigid films the measured change in resonant frequency (Af) with attached mass (AM) is described by the Sauerbrey equation (10) ... 

The strong dependence of the layer structure on the nature of the contacting electrolyte has been further investigated by using the electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM). As discussed above in Chapter 3, this technique is based on the measurement of the frequency with which a coated quartz crystal vibrates, and this frequency can then be related to the mass of this crystal provided that the material attached to the surface is rigid. In this way, the changes that occur in thin films as a result of redox processes can be monitored. 

The application of novel in situ spectroscopic techniques for the study of Li electrodes in solutions should also be acknowledged. These include FTIR spectroscopy [108], atomic force microscopy (AFM) [109], electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) [110], Raman spectroscopy [111], and XRD [83],... 

Since the early work of Kanazawa [1] and Bruckenstein in 1985 [2], quartz crystal resonators have been used for more than 12 years in contact with liquids to assess changes in mass during electrochemical surface processes. Extensive use of the electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) has been done in the study of electrode processes with change of mass simultaneous to charge transfer. 

The electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) has emerged as a very powerful in situ technique to complement electrochemical experiments [3-5]. Nomura and Okuhara [15] first used the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) to detect mass changes at a metal coated quartz resonator immersed in electrolyte during electrochemical experiments. 

Buttry [47] measured the admittance around resonance of a quartz crystal coated with polynitrostyrene and related those measurements to the rheological changes due to film swelling. Muramatsu et al. used the resonant resistance in addition to the resonant frequency of the electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) as a criterion to evaluate the film non-rigidity for several electroactive polymer systems [6], including... 

Our approach to this problem involves a detailed mechanistic study of model systems, in order to identify the (electro)chemical parameters and the physicochemical processes of importance. This approach takes advantage of one of the major developments in electrochemical science over the last two decades, namely the simultaneous application of /ton-electrochemical techniques to study interfaces maintained under electrochemical control [3-5]. In general terms, spectroscopic methods have provided insight into the detailed structure at a variety of levels, from atomic to morphological, of surface-bound films. Other in situ methods, such as ellipsometry [6], neutron reflectivity [7] and the electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) [8-10], have provided insight into the overall penetration of mobile species (ions, solvent and other small molecules) into polymer films, along with spatial distributions of these mobile species and of the polymer itself. Of these techniques, the one upon which we rely directly here is the EQCM, whose operation and capability we now briefly review. 

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