Open AccessCircuit Analysis of Ionizing Surface Potential Measurements of Electrolyte Solutions
Author(s) -
Tehseen Adel,
Juan Velez-Alvarez,
Anne C. Co,
Heather C. Allen
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of the electrochemical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.258
H-Index - 271
eISSN - 1945-7111
pISSN - 0013-4651
DOI - 10.1149/1945-7111/abd649
Subject(s) - electrolyte , surface tension , robustness (evolution) , analytical chemistry (journal) , chemistry , aqueous solution , ion , materials science , electrode , thermodynamics , physics , chromatography , biochemistry , gene , organic chemistry
Surface potential measurement values of the gas-liquid interface can be ambiguous despite the numerous electrochemical approaches used for quantification of the reported values. Calibration and normalization methods are not standardized, which often undermines the robustness of the reported values. Surface potential instrumentation and data interpretation also varies significantly across literature. Here, we propose a circuit model for an ionizing surface potential method based on the alpha decay of a radioactive americium-241 electrode. We evaluate the robustness of the circuit model for quantifying the surface potential at the air-aqueous interface. We then show successful validation of our circuit model through determination of the surface tension of the air-electrolyte interface with comparison to respective surface tension literature values. This validation reveals the reliability of surface potential measurements using the americium-241 ionizing method. We also report the surface potential difference of the air/water interface to be −0.49 V ± 0.01 V consistent with hydrogens of water pointing toward the air phase.