Are you using a buffer and/or supporting electrolyte? For instance, you may have phosphate buffer with a relatively high concentration of NaCl/KCl as a supporting electrolyte.

It is quite common to use a Ag/AgCl system as a pseudo reference electrode.

Those that are commercially available are often immersed in a saturated KCl, NaCl or LiCl solution as an electrolyte and to maintain a high Cl- concentration, and are contained within a glass cell fitted with a porous frit.

You can of course use just a Ag wire coated with AgCl but you should monitor its condition, checking the quality of the AgCl coating and store in a suitable solution when not in use. Yoy may have to periodically regenerate the AgCl coating, see the following:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_anyone_suggest_simple_methods_for_preparation_of_reference_electrodes10

Are you using a buffer and/or supporting electrolyte? For instance, you may have phosphate buffer with a relatively high concentration of NaCl/KCl as a supporting electrolyte.

It is quite common to use a Ag/AgCl system as a pseudo reference electrode.

Those that are commercially available are often immersed in a saturated KCl, NaCl or LiCl solution as an electrolyte and to maintain a high Cl- concentration, and are contained within a glass cell fitted with a porous frit.

You can of course use just a Ag wire coated with AgCl but you should monitor its condition, checking the quality of the AgCl coating and store in a suitable solution when not in use. Yoy may have to periodically regenerate the AgCl coating, see the following:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_anyone_suggest_simple_methods_for_preparation_of_reference_electrodes10

Well, there is still an electrolyte, just not the correct electrolyte. The Ag/AgCl reference electrode is only the standard reference electrode if it is in sat'd KCl. If the electrolyte is anything else (or, technically, if it is at any temperature other than 25C) then it is really a quasi-reference.

That said, many researchers use qre's. They are stable enough to serve as a reference point during experiments. It is just that their potential is no longer "known" relative to other potentials. You can get around that by adding an internal reference (like ferricyanide) or, if you don't actually need to know the absolute potential, by just stating that it is vs. AgCl qre, not Ag/AgCl reference. E.g. if OCP is the potential of note then the exact potential of your reference electrode may be irrelevant.

A quasi reference electrode may be preferred typically if you work in small volumes, and the process under study at working electrode is sensitive to ionic strength (e.g. polyelectrolyte modified electrodes). If you use for example a conventional reference electrode electrolyte leakage from the reference electrode can make reproducible results difficult or impossibe In the case you analyze your results by integrating the current, that is when current is more important than potential a quasi reference electrode may (under above circumstances) be a better choice. For many reversible redox couples a graphite fiber or even an electrode the same as the working electrode may serve as a "pseudo" reference electrode. Notice the high salt concentration in reference electrodes is for conductivity and convention purposes, not for facilitating charge transfer as almost no current flows through the ref. electrode when you use a 3-electrode system (function of the impedance of the electrometer).

It may just be a little uncomfortable when you write up your results, as most papers report their data vs. some well known reference electrode (e.g.calomel, Ag/AgCl). However if you characterize the quasi reference vs. a known reference and it's behavior is reproducible under the experimental conditions the term quasi will loose it's meaning (but don't go as far as reporting vs. Ag/AgCl when you use another reference electrode). It is also important to analyze the pseudo reference electrode properly, as maybe some time later (can be years), you may be interested in potential shifts and you need to reanalyze your data...

Best regards, Mike

Congratulations on your interesting topic.

The views and experiences of all are well presented by Michael Wijnhoven, Jacob Ketter, Artur Braun and Jules Lloyd Hammond.

I would add that the factors that influence the study are enough. These are electrode state, solubility, solution concentration, repeatability, solution quantity, pressure, solution temperature, pH of the solution, ambient temperature, electrode temperature before immersion, sample rate, surface roughness of the sample, area of study, feed rate, loss in conductor, etc.

In order to realize an electrochemical cell, at least two electrodes and a solution vessel are immersed therein. However, this is not enough to achieve objective results. It will take more parameters to be controlled above to have at least comparability.

Best regards, Emil Yankov