Current measurement experiment

Just ran it again with MMO anode (iridium-tantalum titanium) and the cell voltage is around 0.3V lower :tada:

With minimal media (high iron), half filled, with MMO anode:

Intensity Current Earlier electrodes (cell V) MMO anode (cell V) MMO lower by
0% 0mA 0.03V 0V —
3% 5.7mA 2.85V 2.58V 0.27V
5% 7.8mA 2.98V 2.70V 0.28V
10% 13mA 3.25V 2.94V 0.31V
15% 18mA 3.44V 3.11V 0.33V
20% 23.3mA 3.60V 3.30V 0.30V
25% 28.5mA 3.78V 3.43V 0.35V

Here is the case for switching from platinised to MMO (iridium-tantalum-coated titanium) anodes. IrO₂ is a much better OER catalyst at neutral pH, so it reaches the same current at a lower voltage - i.e. less overpotential, less ROS. My measurements bear this out: across matched runs, MMO sat ~0.3 V below the previous electrodes at every current.

One caveat on thresholds: I’ve been using ~2.5 V cell voltage as a rough “stay below this” figure based on our own “no growth above 2%” observation, but I want to be clear that’s a working hypothesis for our setup, not a literature constant. The MMO swap clearly reduces overpotential and therefore ROS; whether it’s enough to get us below the actual inhibition threshold is something we’ll only confirm with culture data.

1 Like