Basic Impedance Spectroscopy

Short Course at ECS meetings

This course is intended for chemists, physicists, materials scientists, and engineers with an interest in applying electrochemical impedance techniques to study a broad variety of electrochemical processes. The attendee will develop a basic understanding of the technique, the sources of errors in impedance measurements, the manner in which experiments can be optimized to reduce these errors, and the use of graphical methods to interpret measurements in terms of meaningful physical properties.

Topics to be covered

• the motivation for using impedance spectroscopy advantages as compared to other transient techniques and the conditions under which its use is ideally suited,
• the basic concepts of how impedance is measured,
• proper selection of experimental parameters,
• graphical representation of impedance data, including methods to extract some physically meaningful parameters,
• constant-phase elements,
• application of electrical circuit analogues, and
• the meaning of the Kramers-Kronig relations

The concepts will be illustrated by applications to different systems including corrosion, fuel cells, batteries, and transport through membranes such as skin. A list of suggested references will be provided.

This course is the first in a two course sequence offered at alternating ECS meetings by Professor Orazem. The second course in the series, “Advanced Impedance Spectroscopy,” introduces model development based on proposed reaction mechanisms, statistical analysis of impedance data, and regression analysis.

About the Instructor

Orazem is a Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Florida, where he also holds the ExxonMobil Chemical Engineering Alumni and the University of Florida Research Foundation term professorships. Orazem is also Adjunct Professor at the Beijing University of Chemical Technology. He obtained his BS and MS degrees from Kansas State University and his doctorate in 1983 from the University of California, Berkeley. He was recognized as an outstanding educator in 2004 by BP Azerbaijan. He was recognized as the 2005 College of Engineering Distinguished International Educator, and he was recognized as a 2008 Blue Key Distinguished Professor. Prof. Orazem is a Fellow of The Electrochemical Society and served for ten years as Associate Editor for the Journal of the Electrochemical Society. He served as President of the International Society of Electrochemistry. He has over 180 refereed publications and has co-authored, with Bernard Tribollet of the CNRS in Paris, a textbook on the subject, Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy. The Chinese translation was published by Chemical Industry Press in 2014. Orazem received the 2012 ECS Henry B. Linford Award for Distinguished Teaching.