Electrode Electrode An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit (e.g. a semiconductor, an electrolyte, a vacuum or air). The word was coined by William Whewell at the request of the scientist Michael Faraday from two Greek words: "elektron", meaning amber (from which the word electricity is derived), and "hodos", a way. The electrophore, invented by Johan Wilcke, was an early version of an electrode used to study static electricity. An electrode in an electrochemical cell is referred to as either an "anode" or a "cathode" (words that were coined by William
Fluoride selective electrode where the fluoride transport number is 1. As transference of charge through the crystal is almost exclusively due to fluoride, the electrode is highly specific to fluoride. The only ion which significantly interferes is hydroxide (OH). Generally such "alkaline error" can be avoided by buffering the sample to a pH below 7. The cell diagram of a typical experimental arrangement is: where: Some commercially available reference electrodes have an internal junction which minimizes the liquid junction potential between the sample solution and the electrolyte in the reference electrode (KCl). The internal electrolyte is at fixed composition and the electrode response