Electrochemical performance of a new all solid-state ultra-low noise electrospray electrode as a marine electric field sensor.

Abstract

A new type of Ag/AgCl electrode as a marine electric field sensor is prepared using electrospray. The surface of the electrode is porous, and the particle size of AgCl is small and uniform with an average particle size of 1.43 µm, which accelerated the speed of the oxidation-reduction reactions. Therefore, the electrode with large specific surface area has high stability and low noise. The impedance, sensitivity, self-noise, and stability of the electrode are measured to study the electrochemical performance of the electrode. The impedance of the electrode is 7.9 Ω, and the electrode shows resistance characteristics, meaning that the electrode can well receive the weak ocean electric field signals with low signal distortion. The sensitivity experiment result shows that the electrode can well restore the sinusoidal electric field signal of 1Hz (10 mV). The voltage drift is less than 5 µV/100 h, the self-potential is between -51 and 56 µV, and the self-noise of the electrode is 2.48 nV @ 1Hz. The AgCl layer on the surface of the electrode is porous and thick, and the particle size of AgCl is small and uniform. This makes the electrode have excellent electrochemical performance. All the experimental results show that the electrode has ultra-low noise and excellent response to low frequency weak electric field signals. The electrode is of great significance to the exploitation of marine resources as the marine electric field sensor.