Anode to what occurs in an electrolytic cell, no anions flow to the anode, the internal current being entirely accounted for by the cations flowing away from it (cf drawing). In the United States, many battery manufacturers regard the positive electrode as the anode, particularly in their technical literature. Though technically incorrect, it does resolve the problem of which electrode is the anode in a secondary (or rechargeable) cell. Using the traditional definition, the anode switches ends between charge and discharge cycles. In electronic vacuum devices such as a cathode ray tube, the anode is the positively charged electron collector. In
Absolute electrode potential defined analogously. In this approach, all three species taking part in the reaction, including the electron, must be placed in thermodynamically well-defined states. All species, including the electron, are at the same temperature, and appropriate standard states for all species, including the electron, must be fully defined. The absolute electrode potential is then defined as the Gibbs free energy for the absolute electrode process. To express this in volts one divides the Gibb’s free energy by the negative of Faraday’s constant. Rockwood's approach to absolute-electrode thermodynamics is easily expendable to other thermodynamic functions. For example, the absolute half-cell entropy has