Hello,

I have a two compartment electrochemical cell. I have put a nanoporous aluminum oxide membrane (nominal pore diameter = 20 nm) between these two compartments. Now I looked at the impedance of the system using a 4 electrode set up with two reference electrodes (Ag/AgCl) across the membrane to measure the voltage (one is connected to the reference and the other to the working sense lead of the potentiostat).

The working and counter electrodes are Pt wires. The electrolyte is 1 X Phosphate Saline buffer, pH 7.4. The EIS parameters are VAC = 5 mV, VDC = 0 mV w.r.t. OCP, frequency range = 0.1 - 10 kHz. The OCP was ~ 3.8 mV with less than 10 per cent variation in 300 s before running the EIS.

The Bode and Nyquist plots for one EIS are attached. I used a model shown in the figure to fit the EIS data.

My question is : I see two distinct peaks in the phase plot, so I used two R-CPE elements in the model. I would say that one such parallel R-CPE is for the membrane. Could the other one be due to the reference electrodes ?

Or could it be that one R-CPE block is due to the aluminum oxide and the other is for the nanopores ?

Kindly advise.

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