1924 – The model of Butler

The year 1924, with the publication of Butler's series of papers on electrochemical equilibrium, became a milestone in the history of electrochemistry. Although the goal of these articles was equilibrium, they ultimately had a tremendous impact on electrochemical kinetics. It is ironic, but it seems that in writing down his kinetic expressions from general considerations, Butler did not even bother to look at the available data in this field. This violation of scholarly tradition seems to have affected the reception of Butler's work. The real impact of Butler's articles on his contemporaries is difficult to assess today. However, it is possible to trace the chain of influence from Butler through Bowden to Volmer and Erdey-Grúz. This suggests that they wrote their seminal work not only under the undoubted influence of Bowden but also of Butler.

Butler enriched electrochemical kinetics with a number of new approaches, although in his work kinetics was only a tool for validating equilibrium. He was the first to take into account, albeit in a semi-quantitative way, the effect of the potential on the rate of the process. Furthermore, it was Butler who introduced the concept of dynamic equilibrium into electrochemical kinetics.

In order to better understand the new concepts introduced by Butler, the electrochemical ideas of the time are discussed in detail: the Nernst-Brunner model of diffusion processes, the Jahn-Schönrock concept, based on the Nernst equation, and the Haber model of non-electrolyte reduction.