Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy

Ok, so the title should have scared most people away...

EIS is a technique used in corrosion, sensors, and echem energy (batteries, fuel cells, super caps, dye sensitized solar cells). Impedance is measured at a series of discrete frequencies, and plotted either linear as imaginary vs. real (Nyquist) or on a Bode plot (log x log: mag and phase vs freq). The vast majority of meaningful information and behavior occurs at frequencies well below 1 MHz, and really, below 10 kHz. For instrumentation, however, 1 MHz has become the standard, and so that's what everyone specs. The problem is that there is no speaking to the accuracy. Doing impedance measurements at 1 MHz is very difficult. Stray capacitance on the high end and inductance on the low conspire to pinch the impedance bandwidth as frequency increases.

Some of those 1 MHz instruments are not even within 10% accuracy at 1MHz anywhere (or 10 deg phase). I suppose you could argue that this virtual lie is no different than the presentation of current resolution as an indicator of the current limit of detection (when noise is the real cutoff, which many potentiostat manufacturers do not specify).

As I work for a company that does not lie about that or hide it or inflate specs beyond performance I end up with mixed feelings. I want to be able to publicly call this crap out, but it is unseemly or something. In the peculiar confluence of science and business, science has to fight really hard to come out ahead.

4 comments:

Solartron Guy said...

Thank God that Solartron Analytical is out there to lead the way in honest specs!

Jacob said...

HA! Though they are pretty good too, provided you want to pay way too much.

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