Arjun, 

How frequently you are chlorinating?  Are you passing current through the electrode during KCL chlorination?

Alternatively you can use household bleach (Clorox) , it is very simple method.

Here I am sending the link for "TECHNIQUES FOR CHLORIDING SILVER WIRES"

Go through it, I hope it will helpful to you.

http://www.warneronline.com/pdf/whitepapers/chloriding_wire.pdf

Hi, Thanks for the reply. Now a days I do chlorinate the electrode every three to four days. I follow the same methods that you sent. The problem is crumbling of AgCl. I have not tried a bleach yet, may be I can have a shot on that!

Hi Arjun,

Rajesh provided you with the right answer already. You can indeed either use KCL and pass current through your electrode. Or simply bath your electrode into bleach - it is what we are doing in the lab, we usually bath overnight after pretty much every single patching day. Just make sure to gently clean/sand your electrode with the "green side of a Spongex sponge - the rough side" before bathing.

Hope it helps. If you still have any issue please let us know. Good luck!

How do you know, that the particles you describe are caused by insufficient chlorination? My first guess would be that you scratch the surface of your electrode too much while inserting your glass pipette. Also, depending on the glass you use, you might have very sharp edges at the glass pipette end. If so, then you can try to fire-polish them over a burner.

However, if you really think it is the chlorination than make sure that you always have fresh KCl solution. As soon as dirt accumulates in the solution, your chlorination will always be insufficient. 

The best way to avoid all problems and even get a more stable electrode potential is to use a micro-agar salt bridge: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4340483/pdf/nihms664142.pdf

The only downside is that it dries quickly so you always have to make sure that you put this salt bridge into KCl solution.

Arjun,

In our lab we use electroplating as described in the link provided by Rajesh, however we use 0,5% HCl as the plating solution. Also it seems that if the current is too strong, the wire goes black in a matter of seconds. This is not the desired effect as the AgCl surface tears off easily. On the electrolysis device we use for plating we want to get a 2-3 mA current(it is obtainable by adjusting voltage on the power unit), this way plating goes slowly(3-5 minutes is enough) and AgCl surface is more durable and looks dark-grey/black and is shiny (as opposed to weak surface which is black and mat). I haven't used bleach method, though I've heard it doesn't provide a surface as fine as the electroplating method.

Hope it helped, good luck with your research!

Dear Nobert, Martin and Marek Thank you for the great suggestions. As MArtin said there were few issues of scratching but we have already sorted it. What exist is the deposition of black powder, must be the AgCl. I will try the methods that you all refered and choose the best!

Thanks again

Hi, Adam Munhall, thanks a lot for the suggestions. Unfortunately we can not change the type of pipette that we use due to specificity of the experiment. Fire polishing can be a good option. 

Anyways I have tried somethings from the top comments, and its getting better and better now!

Fire polishing always work. To chloride silver wire is just enough put it in pure regular Bleach for 20 minutes once a week, simple solutions always work better

before you coat it make sure to remove all the Cl, then place the electrode into FeCl3.  This will give you a good smooth coating that will likely last for months.