Primary cell dioxide is used in the Leclanché cell and zinc–carbon cell, and nitric acid is used in the Bunsen cell and Grove cell. Attempts have been made to make simple cells self-depolarizing by roughening the surface of the copper plate to facilitate the detachment of hydrogen bubbles with little success. Electrochemical depolarization exchanges the hydrogen for a metal, such as copper (e.g., Daniell cell), or silver (e.g., Silver-oxide cell).so called The battery terminal (electrode) that develops a positive voltage polarity (the carbon electrode in a dry cell) is called the cathode and the electrode with a negative polarity (zinc in a
Standard electrode potential is sufficient to calculate either one of the potentials. Therefore, standard electrode potential is commonly written as standard reduction potential. The electrode potential cannot be obtained empirically. The galvanic cell potential results from a "pair" of electrodes. Thus, only one empirical value is available in a pair of electrodes and it is not possible to determine the value for each electrode in the pair using the empirically obtained galvanic cell potential. A reference electrode, standard hydrogen electrode (SHE), for which the potential is "defined" or agreed upon by convention, needed to be established. In this case SHE is set to