In studies of electrochemical water splitting, why do we need to change the measured potentials from common reference electrodes (like Ag/AgCl, Saturated Calomel Electrode/SCE, or Hg/HgO) to the Reversible Hydrogen Electrode (RHE) scale? What are the fundamental electrochemical principles and practical considerations that mandate this conversion for accurate data interpretation and comparison across different experimental conditions?"
You don't need to convert potential measured by reference electrodes to the RHE. There are no fundamental electrochemical principles nor practical considerations that mandate this conversion. Personally, I prefer to see the raw experimental values. The correct conversion equation, e.g. for SCE, is
E(RHE) = E(SCE) + 0.991 V + 0.0592 * pH + ionic strength correction.
The ionic strength correction is a complex calculation and almost never taken into account.
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