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
Silver chloride electrode bond with silver of the electrode resulting in silver chloride and free electrons to deliver to the lead wire. The reaction allows current to pass from electrolyte to electrode and the electron current passes through the lead wire for the instrument to read. When there is an uneven distribution of cations and anions, there will be a small voltage called "half-cell potential" associated with the current. In the DC system that is used by the ECG and EEG instruments, the difference between the half-cell potential and the zero potential is shown as DC offset which is an undesirable characteristic. Silver/silver