The Chalkboard: A Positive Spin on Corrosion Measurements: The Rotating Ring-Disk Electrode

Within the inventory of highly sensitive, selective, and broadly useful electroanalytical techniques available nowadays resides a very clever approach to the measurement of reaction rates, including those of certain non electrochemical reactions, and the simultaneous quantitative identification of reaction products, including short-lived intermediates. Conceived by Alexander Frumkin in 1958 and first built by Lev Nekrasov, the rotating ring-disk electrode (RRDE) was a spin-off of the rotating disk electrode (RDE) for which Benjamin Levich developed the hydrodynamic equations defining the electrochemical response. A fascinating account of the development of the RRDE technique by Soviet, American, and British electrochemists during and despite the Cold War can be found in an earlier issue of Interface.(1)