Talk:Sandbox

Chemical and/or electrochemical methods of cleaning your electrode should be trialled before resorting to mechanical methods (use of abrasive poloshing powders).

Use of Alumina, and other abrasive polishing powders, should be restricted to situations where the electrode is coated with material that cannot otherwise be removed.

Chemical Cleaning

Most metal oxide coatings can be removed using mildly acidic conditions (0.1 mol/L nitric or hydrochloric acid).

Precipitated proteins can be removed with commercially available solutions of hydrolytic proteinase solutions.

Greasy deposits/organic deposits can often be be washed away with ethanol (or other organic solvent).

Inorganic deposits may be soluble in dilute (0.1 mol/L) acid or base solution.

Electrochemical Cleaning

Some deposits may be able to be removed by applying a constant oxidizing (or reducing) potential. The use of an acidic (or basic) solvent may accelerate the removal.

For self assembled monolayers of thiols bonded to a gold electrode, first try applying a cathodic potential to reduce the gold-sulfur bonds (creating free floating thiol groups) which can then be washed away.

Mercury Films

Usually mercury films on a platinum or glassy carbon electrode can be removed by wiping gently with a small tissue paper (deposit the tissue paper in mercury waste jar). Any further mercury can be removed by using a oxidizing potential (eg +0.8 V) in 0.1 mol/L nitric acid. This can be followed by gentle polishing on a polishing pad (NO alumina).