Use for External Reflection Measurements

Commercial FTIR spectrometers are designed for transmission experiments. It is thus necessary to use a reflectance attachment to deviate the beam and to focus it on the surface of the working electrode, in the electrochemical cell. 

In fact, as clearly noted by Pons et sophisticated FTIR spectrometers are required for work at the electrode/solution interface. In particular, they must allow alternating access to several memories for coadding the inter-ferograms at two different potential limits that are repetitively changed. They must allow also the further spectral subtractions and divisions by the background which are necessary to generate the final spectrum of the detected species. 

Subtractively Normalized Interfacial Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (SNIFTIRS). Pons et have developed the SNIFTIRS technique, 

The SNIFTIRS technique has proved to be quite suitable for the in situ detection of either electrogenerated intermediates in the double layer or species adsorbed at the electrode surface. 

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