Electrode Polishing Kit
Electrode polishing is a rite of passage in electrochemistry. While it is not the most exciting part of doing electrochemistry, it is necessary and essential as a routine practice. You should always use high quality polishing materials, to ensure electrode surfaces are kept clean without damaging or overly scratching their precious surfaces. The polishing kit contains a variety of materials to cover all types of electrode polishing, from routine to more aggressive polishing. The Pine Research electrode polishing guide references how to use the products in this kit for different types of electrode polishing. View the parts contained in this kit below, if you need to order only part of the polishing kit.
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Electrode polishing is a rite of passage in electrochemistry. While it is not the most exciting part of doing electrochemistry, it is necessary and essential as a routine practice. You should always use high quality polishing materials, to ensure electrode surfaces are kept clean without damaging or overly scratching their precious surfaces. The polishing kit contains a variety of materials to cover all types of electrode polishing, from routine to more aggressive polishing. The Pine Research electrode polishing guide references how to use the products in this kit for different types of electrode polishing. View the parts contained in this kit below, if you need to order only part of the polishing kit.
Be sure to read our Electrode Polishing Guide to learn best practices in electrode polishing. This guide describes the components of the electrode polishing kit and how to best use them for optimal results.
Routine polishing of electrodes is a common and necessary practice. The Electrode Polishing Kit includes products for this routine cleaning, but it also contains products for more aggressive polishing, including complete re-polish. Use extreme caution with aggressive and complete re-polishing of electrodes. We recommend you Contact Us before attempting these types of polishing. We can offer you some tips and extra advice to help prevent irreversible damage of expensive electrodes!
Polishing Pad Descriptions
Routine, daily polishing of a precision electrode surface is normally accomplished using a slurry of sub-micron alumina particles. The slurry is deposited on a special microcloth and then the electrode is pressed into the slurry and carefully polished against the alumina particles.
At the end of a series of tests, the surface of an electrode should normally be polished using an ultrafine slurry of 0.05 µm alumina particles. This slurry is usually sufficient for preparing the electrode surface for the next set of tests. In the event that a slightly more aggressive resurfacing is required (i.e., if a thin film has fouled the electrode surface), then a fine slurry of 0.3 µm alumina particles can be used first to remove the film. Then, after the film is removed, the surface can be polished with the ultrafine 0.05 µm alumina slurry.
A far less frequent "coarse polishing" of the electrode surface involves larger alumina particles (5 µm) and should only be performed if the electrode has a noticeable scratch or has been fouled with a thick layer of unwanted material.
Pine Research offers a 5 µm alumina slurry that is normally used in conjunction with a hard nylon polishing cloth.
- Nisa et al. Design and Optimization of Critical-Raw-Material-Free Electrodes towards the Performance Enhancement of Microbial Fuel Cells. Catalysts, 2024, 14, 385.
- San Roman et al. Engineering Three-Dimensional (3D) Out-of-Plane Graphene Edge Sites for Highly Selective Two-Electron Oxygen Reduction Electrocatalysis. ACS Catalysis, 2020, 10, 1993-2008.