Development and use of an open-source, user-friendly package to simulate voltammetry experiments

Abstract

An open-source electrochemistry simulation package has been developed that simulates the electrode processes of four reaction mechanisms and two typical electroanalysis techniques: cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry. Unlike other open-source simulation software, this package balances the features with ease of learning and implementation and can run on mainstream operating systems. In an elctroanalysis lecture for graduate students, we have simulated the cyclic voltammetry of an electron transfer reaction with varied scan rates. The dynamical concentration profiles were demonstrated in an animation to help students understand the relation between currents and evolving concentration profiles, and the relations between peak currents and scan rates were also discussed.