What are some common techniques and methods used with potentiostats in electrochemistry?

There are many different techniques and methods in electrochemistry. The differences between the techniques are the profile of the applied potential or current and when the signal is measured.

Techniques can be classified by what is controlled, for example, potentiostatic techniques, when the potential is controlled, and galvanostatic techniques, when the current is controlled.

You also find the term potentiodynamic for potentiostatic measurements, but the potential is scanned or pulsed and not constant.

You can also use what is measured to group techniques, e.g. when current is measured the technique is amperometric and when a potential is measured it is potentiometric.

Interestingly, the group of voltammetric techniques is defined by the way the data is plotted, which is current i versus potential E. Voltammetric is a portmanteau of Volt and amperometric.

Techniques with short steps forward and backward in potential or current are also known as pulsed techniques.

The last group we would like to present here is the ac techniques. Ac stands for alternating current and in general, describes techniques that have sine wave-shaped current or potential. The most important technique in this group is the Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS).

Here is a list of different techniques: