2. Electrode Potentials
Review of thermodynamics and its relation to electrode potentials
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You can download a copy of the slides here for notetaking purposes.
Gibbs Free Energy and Equilibrium Potential
The following videos provide instruction on the relationship between thermodynamics (Gibbs Free Energy) and electrode potentials at equilibrium. If you get lost in this video, it might be good for you to watch the Electrochemical Cell Potentials video on YouTube by Emily Tsui
Reference Electrodes
The video below covers different types of reference electrodes, conversion between reference electrodes, and issues to be aware with reference electrodes.
Discussion on Potentials
There are many type of potentials in electrochemistry. This video discuss each of the different types of potential to clarify what each type of potential means and where they apply.
Additional Resources
PDF of slides for notetaking:
Lesson 2 Potentials and Thermodynamics of Cells
Archived Instructional Videos:
This videos cover some topics differently and in greater depth, which help improve your understanting.
Lesson 2A Gibbs Free Energy and Potentials
Lesson 2B Nernst Equation and Reference Electrodes
Lesson 2C Quasi RE and RE Scales
Lesson 2D Electrochemical Potentials
Lesson 2E Liquid Junction Potentials
Electrochemistry Videos by Emily Tsui:
These videos are not focused on molten salts but do a good job of covering general fundamental aspects of potentials.
Electrochemical Cell Notation - Provides the reasoning behind the shorthand used to depict electrochemical cells (e.g., Cu|Cu2+|| Zn2+|Zn).
Electrochemical Cell Potentials - Provides more chemistry background on electrochemical cells and describes electrochemical cell potentials in greater detail and more incremental steps. This could be a good video to watch, if you got a little lost in Lesson 2A above.
Standard Reduction Potential - Watch this video if you didn't quite grasp the concept of standard reduction potentials in the lessons above
Nernst Equation - Watch this video, if you want to understand how to use the Nernst equation better
References for Deeper and Broader Learning:
Boettcher, S. W., Oener, S. Z., Lonergan, M. C., Surendranath, Y., Ardo, S., Brozek, C., & Kempler, P. A. (2021). Potentially Confusing: Potentials in Electrochemistry. ACS Energy Letters, 6(1), 261–266. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenergylett.0c02443
Zhang, W., Pulham, C. R., Mount, A. R., Brockie, N., & Lewin, R. (2008). Thermodynamic calculation and reference electrode calibration for high temperature molten salts. Energy Materials, 3(2), 132–136. https://doi.org/10.1179/174892408X394254