ABSTRACT
Keywords: electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance, underpotential deposition
1 INTRODUCTION
Investigation of the electrode/electrolyte boundary involves the deployment of a wide arsenal of electrochemical and non-electrochemical techniques (Zoski 2007). So-called direct current (DC) techniques, such as voltammetric techniques remain the primary techniques used in the characterization of non-stationary systems. Non-stationarity, in this context, means that the studied systems do not display the same properties in cycle-to-cycle sequences, or even from the forward to backward potential scans (Bondarenko, Ragoisha, Osipovich, and Streltsov 2006, Ragoisha and Bondarenko 2004). Such non-stationarity can arise from factors, such as surface alloying and/or surface reconstruction. Under these circumstances the ability of voltammetric techniques to characterize systems can be limited. Detailed characterization of these systems should, ideally, be performed within a single potential scan. To achieve this it is important to utilize complementary in-situ techniques in parallel with voltammetric techniques. If possible, these complementary techniques should allow acquisitionof the maximum amount of independent and self-consistent data from the minimum number of measurements.
