Direct Solid Contact in Reference Electrodes

Abstract

As a part of the electrodes used in galvanic cells, the role of direct (internal) contact is to facilitate communication between the meter and the electrochemical cell. This is usually solid contact (SC) and is referred to by names such as solid contact ion-selective electrodes (SC ISEs) or solid contact reference electrodes (SC REs). The main reason for introducing solid contact into indicator/working or reference electrodes is to eliminate their watery compartments, often called internal solution. This solution can be an obstacle in many applications where there are restrictive maintenance and/or service demands (e.g., in clinical chemistry), there is contamination of the sample by a leakage of the internal solution (e.g., in cellular biology), there is a need for other than a vertical position (e.g., in industrial process analysis), or specific reference electrode shapes (e.g., in disposable clinical analyzers) are required.