Current Interruption—Instrumentation and Applications

Abstract

This paper describes an electronic circuit for periodic interruption of current to a cell with simultaneous observation of closed‐circuit and open‐circuit electrode potentials. The open‐circuit potential may be observed at interruption times ranging from 2.0 μs to 2.0s or longer. The duty cycle of the cell may be adjusted between 40 and 99.93%. Application of the circuit to observe relaxation of polarization is demonstrated with simple electrical test circuits, with commercial dry cells, and with a mass‐transfer controlled rotating disk electrode. The latter example shows that interruption can provide not only resistance measurements but also estimates of mass‐transfer parameters.