The Electrical Control of Charge Transfer Reactions

From the above presentations, it is clear that electrochemical reactions have a unique feature which is lacking in chemical reactions. In the laboratory the velocity of an electrochemical reaction can be changed by orders of magnitude simply by changing the setting on the potential which changes the rate of the reaction concerned (cf. the Butler-Volmer equation). 

To illustrate this, suppose that one has an electrode potential for which the equilibrium potential is 0.377 V on the hydrogen scale, and applies an overpotential of —0.5 V to the electode, then the increase in the 

Limiting currents are important in bioelectrochemistry because bioelectrochemistry deals with electronic conduction in what may be considered poor semiconductors or even insulators. Under these situations the current will often be controlled by the limiting rate of electron flow to the interface. 

---