Plasma Electrochemistry: Voltammetry in Flame Plasma Electrolyte Seminar

Often not regarded to be of importance in the electrochemical field; gases had long been labelled as ideal electrical insulators. However, gaseous plasmas conform to the characteristics of electrolytes with their ability to conduct electricity due to the presence of stable mobile cationic and anionic species. The ionised gaseous environment of a flame acts as a dilute electrolyte, enabling us to apply well-established principles of the liquid phase to the gas phase. In this seminar some recent unpublished results will be presented showing reproducible redox processes using conventional cyclic voltammetry in an operational potential window between 1 to -9 V. The measurements were enabled through the development of a new reference electrode, composed of yttria stabilised zirconia (YSZ) which maintains a stable potential at 1100 K. In this paper we focus on developing a phenomenological understanding of electron transfer at the solid/gas interface, using cyclic voltammetry.