# Rotating Cylinder Electrochemistry (RCE)

Last Updated: 4/30/19 by Neil Spinner

### 1General Theory

The rotating disk and ring-disk electrodes were developed primarily as a result of academic electroanalytical chemistry research.  In contrast, the theory for the rotating cylinder electrode (RCE) was developed by industrial researchers   in the corrosion and electroplating communities.  While the flow of solution at a rotating disk (or ring-disk) is laminar over a wide range of rotation rates, the flow at the surface of a rotating cylinder is turbulent   at all but the slowest rotation rates.  Thus, the RCE is an excellent tool for creating and controlling turbulent flow conditions in the laboratory, and it is most commonly used to mimic turbulent corrosion conditions found in large scale industrial settings such as oilfield pipeline corrosion.

The turbulent flow at a rotating cylinder electrode conveys material from the bulk solution towards the electrode surface.  While the bulk solution remains well stirred by the main vortex induced by the rotating electrode, the layer of solution adjacent to the cylinder surface tends to rotate with the electrode.  Thus, a high shear condition is set up at the surface of the rotating cylinder, spinning off smaller Taylor vortices adjacent to the rotating electrode.

Net movement of material to the surface of a rotating cylinder was first characterized by Morris Eisenberg   in 1954 (about the same time that Levich was describing the rotating disk electrode).  Eisenberg’s work eventually led to the Eisenberg equation which gives the limiting current at a rotating cylinder electrode

$\displaystyle{i_L = 0.0487nFA d_{cyl}^{+0.4} D^{+0.644}\nu^{-0.344}\omega^{+0.7}C}$

in terms of the concentration (C) and diffusion coefficient (D) of the molecule or ion being studied, the Faraday constant (F = 96485 coulombs per mole), the electrode area (A), the diameter of the cylinder (dcyl), the kinematic viscosity of the solution (ν), and the angular rotation rate (ω = 2πf/60 , where f is the rotation rate in revolutions per minute).  In the years since Eisenberg’s initial work with the rotating cylinder, additional work by Gabe, Kear, Walsh, and Silverman has described industrial applications of the RCE.

### 2References

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