New concept for a potentiostat for on-line ohmic drop compensation in cyclic voltammetry above 300 kV s −1

Abstract

A new concept for a potentiostat is presented for ohmic drop compensation in submicrosecond cyclic voltammetry. Theory and simulations of the potentiostat allow the prediction of most of its characteristics, which are then confirmed experimentally on dummy cells. Reduction of anthracene in acetonitrile is examined as a test experimental case. It is thus shown that the potentiostat affords perfectly ohmic drop corrected voltammograms up to scan rates exceeding 300 kV s −1. If the data are corrected further to eliminate the slight constant potential shift due to filtering by the potentiostat (first-order filter correction), scan rates exceeding 0.5 MV s −1 are achievable without distortion.