In many areas of electrochemistry (electrocatalytic water splitting, CO2 reduction, N2 reduction, etc.), we must relate electrochemical data (current, potential) to on-line chemical quantification data (from e.g. gas chromatography, mass spectroscopy) to properly characterize processes and determine Faradaic efficiencies of electrochemical transformations under different conditions. The challenge is that this requires multiple different sets of hardware & software, and produces data output in different formats and with different time scales. Such systems typically aren't designed to work together automatically, so the researcher must typically spend significant time on post-run data workup to represent the results in a meaningful way.
To those working in this area: What are some strategies for automating the analysis of these combinations of data? Of course, with clever programming (and considerable effort), one could make their own unified software managing everything (e.g. in LabVIEW), but surely there are examples of simpler approaches which people use. I am curious to hear how you do it -- and hopefully this conversation can be mutually helpful for everyone.
Dear Dr. Mayer, you have asked an important question. Speaking of mutual benefit as you mentioned while elaborating on your question, I am curious as well to know which strategy you use currently to manage your output data. How effective it is if any?
Thanks for the comment, Artur. Yes, a custom-built approach done internally is usually best. Ideally we could integrate everything within an existing database software into which we have already invested (e.g. Chromeleon), where (hopefully) professionals have already spent time to establish a reliable and stable platform. We will begin to look into this.
Hello Dr. Metthew,
I am currently working on the electrochemical reduction of CO2. I have always experience the same lengthy time consuming procedures in relating all these post measurement analysis. The biggest challenge in combining these results is the different time scales.
For example, if you are calculating the FE, the data points for charge transfer can be acquired at a interval of 0.01sec. Whereas, in order to determine the amount of product formed you need to collect the products at least for seconds. Then, take the average value. Moreover, the detection system is outside the cell, which means there will always be a lag of few seconds.
In order to have an automated system, one must need a system to detect and quantify these products at the same speed. I am not aware if it is possible.
So I'm not an electrochemist, but I stumbled across this thread and do have some experience building/publishing open-source library code in Python. Is this a problem which simply requires analysis procedures to be codified? I'd be up for a collaboration to try and build a library system which automates some of this grunt work if anyone thinks that's feasible.
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