Detection of electrode asymmetry in electrochemical noise analysis

Abstract

The electrochemical noise resistance is a calculation that can be used for estimating the rate of corrosion of a pair of metal samples purely from the electrochemical noise that they generate. Ideally these metal samples (electrodes) would be identical, but it is not uncommon, for various reasons, for the electrodes to be significantly different. In that case, the theory linking the noise resistance to the more conventional electrochemical parameter, the polarisation resistance, breaks down. This link is important because it is only via the polarisation resistance that noise resistance can be used for corrosion rate estimation. It is therefore important to be able to detect an asymmetric electrode pair. This paper describes how the cross correlation between voltage and current noise can be used to detect an asymmetry.