Electrochemistry

Introduction In 1812 Humphry Davy wrote: “If a piece of zinc and a piece of copper be brought in contact with each other, they will form a weak electrical combination, of which the zinc will be positive, and the copper negative; this may be learnt by the use of a delicate condensing electrometer”. One can consider what happens when electrodes (zinc and copper in Davy’s experiment) are immersed in electrolyte solutions and connected via an external metallic conductor. Such an arrangement is a typical electrochemical cell.